The Department of Work and Labor
by El Conservatore
Summary: In a world where the Eurozone Fiscal Crisis has caused Europe to tumble toward mass chaos, the Social Welfare Agency is one of the last bastions of defense to prevent total civil war in Italy. With costs on the rise, Director Lorenzo Pieri of Section Two authorizes production of the specialized, lower cost 2nd Generation Cyborgs as things begin a turn for the worse.
1. Initial Considerations

It was getting very late in the evening at the Social Welfare Agency's administrative center. Overhead, the sky was clear and sparkled gently with the light of thousands of stars. A breeze stirred the grass and leaves of the surrounding countryside, but the wind was so gentle that it failed to noticeably effect the pleasantly cool temperature of the evening.

The calm of the night contrasted sharply with the state of the Republic of Italy. With the onset of the Eurozone Crisis, and the associated inflation of the Euro, philosophical differences between the north and south, divided sharply across the peninsula from Rome to Pescara, had caused unrest that ranged from simple demonstrations and pamphlets to massive riots and terrorism.

In the wake of such civil unrest, the Italian Government, led by the leftist _Coalizione per Beneficio della Comunità_, enacted a number of sweeping reforms "for the public good", spending billions of euros on public security and medical research. With the first, the Coalizione hoped to prevent future violence by identifying and removing "perpetrators of violence" before they could take action. With the latter, the Coalizione hoped to win public confidence by providing for the people.

This was met with decidedly mixed results.

In the north, where fiscal and political conservatism were strongest, the public rebelled against such expenditures. Spending on public security and the expansion of the Gruppo di Intervento Speciale was marginally acceptable, but the investment of billions of dollars in medical innovation for prosthetics and tissue reconstruction, among other things, was look upon with horror. Much better to leave such things to the private sector. The government's duty was to the property of the citizen, after all. Running up such debts and leaving the people to pay it off was anathema to the north, and the sheer scale of the expenditure drove many to violence.

Leading the fight was the _Lega Nord per l'Indipendenza della Padania_. Commonly shortened to just "Lega Nord", the group had risen to prominence for its vigorous promotion of such principals in parliament. Less well known were its more violent activities. Posturing in parliament could only get you so far, and the Lega Nord was determined to, in its view, save Italy from fiscal disaster. Their paramilitary arm, hidden from public view and financed very, very secretly with government funds, was known simply as "The Padania" and operated on a scale similar to the IRA.

Compounding the issue was the Italian Mafia. With the depreciation of the Euro, trading on the black market had jumped notably, allowing the Mafia to grow exponentially. Clashes with businesses and the Carabinieri climbed correspondingly, and the unscrupulousness of mafia business caused a general increase in crime nationwide.

The Social Welfare Agency was the response to this. Located on the outskirts of Rome, away from the lights and noise of the city, the Social Welfare Agency was ostensibly a government operation designed for the health and safety of Italy's citizens. Indeed, the SWA was largely responsible for the majority of the innovations in cybernetic prosthetics, artificial tissue development, reconstructive surgery, and numerous other fields of medicine. Alone, the SWA had elevated Italy to a medical and technological leader and created many millions of euros in revenue from its products.

Underneath this legitimacy, however, was Section Two. Section Two was responsible for the vast majority of high level anti-terrorist and anti-crime work, ranging from deep infiltration to seamless assassination. To accomplish this, Section Two "recruited" young girls, generally no more than eleven or twelve, who were on the brink of death or were doomed to a meaningless existence. After arranging for them to conveniently and tragically die, the Agency gave them new bodies in the form of cyborgs before putting them to work fighting for the government against the Padania.

This was, of course, absurdly expensive.

"It's getting pretty bad," said Abramo, the Social Welfare Agency's head accountant. He was a thin, reedy sort of man with an ill-fitting suit that belied his excellence at managing, and manipulating, account books. "The Coalizione isn't going to be able to justify our continued expenses in Parliament. We need to cut back expenses."

"I understand that, Abramo, but cyborgs aren't cheap," replied Lorenzo Pieri, the Section Director. A veteran of many years in the intelligence agency, Lorenzo was well known for being pragmatic and efficient, yet simultaneously passionate and capable of caring deeply for his staff. An ideal man to run part of an agency dedicated to using young girls as weapons.

"The easiest way to cut costs is to cut salaries, of course, but that could change the delicate dynamic of each fratello," continued Lorenzo with a sigh. "I can't risk that, or we could lose the entire corps. What are the areas of greatest expense? Perhaps we can cut some corners."

Abramo flipped through his ledger. The two of them were talking in Lorenzo's office. The room was neatly furnished with a multitude of bookshelves, an impressive but not overly large desk, and a table with a decanter of burgundy. It was rather late at night, so all the lights were off except for a single desk lamp.

"Other than conditioning, which is a fixed expense," said Abramo. "There's a lot of money going into training. Each cyborg is being trained in a wide variety of combat skills. Hand-to-hand, assassination, trap-laying, assault, infiltration, sniping. The cost of training even a single unit runs into the tens of millions of euros each year. Development of the Generation Twos isn't cheap either, but so far the Technology Department is only worrying about the technical details, we won't need a girl yet."

"Hmm," mused Lorenzo, leaning back in his chair to think. "Where does most of the money in for training go to?"

"Armed Assault and Hostage Rescue," replied Abramo promptly.

"That works perfectly," said Lorenzo, leaning forward and lacing his fingers together. "If we dial back the full spectrum training for the Generation Ones and concentrate on Armed Assault and Hostage Rescue, we can reduce cost by increasing efficiency. As for the other aspects, push back Generation Two to Generation Three. Generation Two, and the associated personnel, will be reorganized into the Department of Work and Labour. We can apply the same logic of upped efficiency to gain decreased cost by splitting the jobs covered in the in full spectrum training and have each Fratello operate in their exclusive area of expertise, with some overlap to cover our bases."

Abramo did some rapid estimations. "...That should reduce our operational costs by 30%," he said with a nod. "I'll send the memo to R&D in the morning."

* * *

HUMINT: Intel gathered from human sources.

SIGINT: Intel gathered from signal interception.

In the area of battlefield intelligence, this is arguably one of the two most important sources of information for a commander. Fancy satellites and drones all have their place as eyes in the sky, but only a really great field agent can convey the subtle nuances of everything he sees.

First Lieutenant James Spettro, former United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance Operative, CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer, and veteran of multiple international anti-terrorist takedown operations, was generally considered to be one of the best at HUMINT and SIGINT operations.

He was also, to indeterminate levels of fortune, considered one of the most terrifying individuals to go up against within the profession. He was a creative operative, willing to go to great lengths to complete his objective, and seemingly a man without morals. He was infamous for supposedly having a massive and highly questionable list of contacts ranging from hookers to gunrunners to schoolchildren to old ladies. He was charming and affable, and could work his way into any social group to plant bugs and gather information. He was cold and ruthless, and could just as soon as eviscerate a man to make a point as he would buy the same man a beer. He was the kindest man you'd ever meet. He was the most terrifying man you'd ever meet.

He was fired.

The last mission James had been on had gone very, very badly. Not for lack of success, mind you, but for the way the lieutenant had pulled it off. It had involved a ten year old pretending to be a hooker who was actually an assassin and had gone down somewhere in East Asia. The plan had gone off without a hitch, seeing as the ten year old really had been a hooker and was learning martial arts to get out of the business. The target had been taken down and interrogated, then dumped into an alley to die of his wounds.

But by sheer luck, the target hadn't died. A good samaritan had found the rapidly expiring man and taken him to the hospital, where the target had subsequently told all and sundry about the treatment he'd "suffered for no reason at the hands of the Americans." The story broke within a week, with Spettro's general description and the Agency's activities plastered across the news. Within hours, all the marks in the region had gone to ground and Spettro had been cast out of the industry.

Well, not entirely. James Spettro was not incompetent and, to be fair, bad luck could strike any operative. One failed mission didn't horribly ruin James' reputation. Following his dismissal, James had found work as a sort of consultant, hopping from place to place to provide assistance for Interpol and other law enforcement agencies. But frankly, James found this work dull. He wanted to get back into intelligence work, where he could really dig into the things he was doing. Tapping phones, snagging cellphone calls, these were things that he could do in his sleep. There was no challenge to this work, and he was too restless, to keyed up on years and years of tense action, to retire without offing himself from sheer boredom.

Inevitably, someone answered his call.

Jean Croce heard about James Spettro for the first time when he was walking back to his office from Section One.

"Spettro's turned up again," said one of the analysts, scrolling through a Carabinieri report. "Rome's called him up and wants him to break into a network in Venice."

"Can't they do that themselves?" asked another analyst. "Most of the mafia networks aren't that well protected."

"Yeah, it's weird, you'd think that they'd ask him to go to Venice directly. Isn't he ex-Marines?"

"US Marines, yeah," said the second analyst, pulling up James' dossier. "Not much on him, except for his military record and that one thing in Southeast Asia."

"You know, he could be a cyborg handler," said the first analyst as Jean left. "He must not have many scruples if what they said about his op down there is true."

Despite objecting to the idea that all the cyborg handlers didn't "have many scruples", Jean was interested. Being a cyborg handler wasn't easy, and if this "James Spettro" was willing to use children in an operation, then he might be useful.

"Do you have any recommendations on handlers for the second generation cyborgs?" asked Lorenzo later, as the two sat across from each other in a staff lounge, discussing business over coffee.

"One, for now," said Jean, pulling out two file folders. "An American, James Spettro. Ex-CIA."

"Why is he 'ex' CIA?"

"Apparently, they had to fire him when an operation went bad in Southeast Asia," said Jean. "It was that or risk a public backlash."

"Careless of him."

"From what I've found, it wasn't that he was careless so much that he had bad luck," answered Jean, pulling out a news article on the mission in question. "From this article, it would seem that he was unlucky enough for his target to be found by a civilian and taken in for treatment."

"Still..."

"We find our girls in worse states and they survive long enough for us to rebuild them," said Jean. "He had no reason to believe that the target would live."

"You make a good point," conceded Lorenzo. "What about his record?"

"I contacted the CIA-" -Jean pulled another series of papers out of the folder- "-and what they've been willing to send me is extremely impressive. He's-"

"Spare me the details," said Lorenzo, checking his watch. "I trust your judgement on this, Jean. You're certain he's a good candidate?"

"As much as I can be in this profession," confirmed Jean.

"Then contact him and process the necessary paperwork," Lorenzo ordered, standing to leave. "I need to finish some things myself, so I'll talk to you later."

"Alright."

Jean eventually arranged to meet with James at a café in Rome. The sun shone brightly, sunglasses were necessary on days like this, in a clear blue sky as Jean stopped his car fifty meters from his destination to scope out his contact.

James was sitting in the middle of the café's outdoor seating while reading a newspaper, wearing a white polo shirt with thin navy-blue stripes that showed off the densely packed muscle of his upper body, despite his obviously greying, close-trimmed, hair. A pair of aviator sunglasses shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun off his newspaper. He seemed completely off his guard and unaware of his surroundings, engrossed in the latest in Italian news.

Jean subconsciously checked for his pistol before approaching James. Rico trailed behind, tightening her grip on her instrument case.

"Lieutenant Spettro," greeted Jean, making his way through the seats and sitting down across from James. Rico hung back, standing half a meter behind Jean's chair. "Welcome to Italy."

"Mr. Croce," said James, keeping his gaze on his newspaper. "How are you?"

"Better than yourself, I gather," said Jean with a trace of irony. James refrained from chuckling. "How have you been?"

"Oh, come good and some bad," said James ambiguously, smiling slightly as he continued reading. "I saw an interesting story on the TV a few months back."

"What was it about?" asked Jean blandly, settling back in his chair slightly, hooking a foot under a table leg to steady himself.

"Something about an operation in Bern, Switzerland," James answered, turning a page. "It was very interesting. Apparently, one of the hostages was surprisingly valiant and helped take down the terrorists turned bank robbers."

"That's always good news, isn't it?"

"Normally, yes. The question is, how did she get an SMG to do it?" asked Spettro, looking away from the words for the first time to smile slyly at Jean over the top of the newspaper.

"That wasn't in the news I heard," said Jean with an air of nonchalance, foot tightening against the table leg.

"Well, it's just that I happen to know a man who deals with a very colorful group," said Spettro with a sigh, returning to his paper. "I must have heard a little something that the news groups didn't."

"What's he like, this friend of yours?" asked Jean politely.

"Oh, you know how those types are," said Spettro. "Always talking about how this is classified and how that is need to know. I think he let the fact that Rainbow- oops."

Jean cocked his head very slightly. "Rainbow?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," said Spettro with a slight nervous tremor. "It's a counter-terror thing."

"But I've heard of them," said Jean. "Aren't they supposed to be rather important?"

"Just as much as you, I think," returned James. "But you know how it is with these people, always shutting the door in your face when you ask questions."

"Well you know how us types are," said Jean sarcastically, with a cocked eyebrow. "We don't like it much when others poke their noses where they don't belong."

"Very true. I almost got my own nose bit off in Rome once."

Jean blinked behind his sunglasses.

"Y'see, I was on my computer and was looking around for some information about this job opportunity you've offered me," continued James nonchalantly. "It was a little scary when my computer started crashing for some reason, but I managed to fix the problem."

"I see. Did you get a virus?"

"Yes, and a worm."

"Well hopefully you won't catch anything harmful while you're in Rome," said Jean, a hint of steel creeping into his voice. Behind him, Rico very slightly tensed.

"I appreciate your concern, but I have a strong immune system," replied James folding his newspaper and placing one hand on his arm rest and the resting his chin on the other. "And besides, I'm reasonably sure that I could at least kill off any virus with my golden bullet, if it came down to a battle between the interloping cells in my system."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a panacea I picked up in China that works pretty well," explained James, moving the hand on the armrest so that it was turned towards him. "Though I have to say, I'm not a bad shot with a gun."

"USMC Force Recon, right?" asked Jean rhetorically. "Must have been exciting. I only ever worked for the Military Police."

"Oh, it had its moments," replied James with a nod.

"You like excitement?"

"For a sensible cause, yes. Terrorism is exciting, after all, but it's more senseless violence than it is any sort of directed ideological action."

"That's good to hear," said Jean, letting his tone slide back into friendly territory. Rico relaxed again, allowing herself to sway back and forth slightly to an unheard tune. "I feel the same way, but some people disagree. Come, I believe I promised you a tour of our facility?"

"Ah, yes you did," laughed Spettro, putting his gun away discretely and laying a few euros on the table. "Do you have a car with you?"

"I do," replied Jean, standing to lead the way out of the café. "It's parked down the street."

"Well then, let's get going. Who's the kid?"

"This is Rico," said Jean, nodding over his shoulder at his charge as they walked. "I happened to be picking her up after class. As you can see, she's very well behaved, so I let her tag along."

"Isn't 'Rico' a boy's name?" asked James, hands in his pockets as he strode along.

"Ah, a nickname, you'll forgive me," Jean replied, opening the door to his car for James as Rico climbed into the back. "Her real name is Adriana. We call her 'Rico' because she prefers boyish clothing."

"Interesting," said James with a raised eyebrow, before getting into the vehicle. He waited until the car had started before continuing the conversation. "I suppose the real reason is because she's a cyborg?"

"You're not supposed to know that," said Jean coldly, keeping his eye on the road. "You got much deeper into our system than you said you did."

"Did I? Well I suppose you should reinforce your system then. Tell your girl to stand down, Jean Croce. I'm not a threat to the Agency."

Jean glanced into the rearview mirror and shook his head. Behind them, Rico nodded and decocked her pistol before holstering it again.

"So, a cyborg, eh?" James asked rhetorically. "Carbon fiber skeleton, electrorheological fluid infused artificial muscles? Pretty advanced stuff."

"You're info is old," Jean said with the same coldness as before. James figured he must always act like this. "We abandoned the electrorheological fluid infusion for the second generation models to improve the compatibility of the muscles with the nervous system."

"Second generation?" James asked in surprise. "Well well, your servers are more secure than we thought they were. I didn't find that."

"We wouldn't be a very good organization if you could hack into them that easily," said Jean, giving James a condescending glance. "You do know why I'm here."

"Of course," said James, rolling his eyes. "I may have been fired for a botched job, but it wasn't because I'm stupid. You want me to be a cyborg handler."

Jean nodded. "You'll be taking the lead for our second generation of cyborgs. We have a girl picked out for you already, as well as quarters and a cover identity."

"And what if I say no?"

"You won't," said Jean. "You're one of those people who can't leave the business without going crazy. You could go into information brokering or running heists, but you're not the type of person who would knowingly cause chaos. We could have hired you as a consultant, but your skills are more useful if they're applied by someone who isn't nearing fifty."

"Good reasoning," complimented James. "Doesn't explain what you'd do if I refused."

"We did have a plan."

"What was it?"

"Rico."

James blinked. "Ah. You'd have me assassinated then."

"You know too much," said Jean bluntly, not much caring how James reacted to his tone. "I hope you're not offended."

"Not at all," said James. "In fact, you've managed to convince me to accept. What do you have in mind for me?"

"There's a girl that we recently recovered from Germany and flew in," said Jean. "I'm taking you to her now."

"This is, as far as we can tell, Emily Cross," said Jean with clinical detachment, introducing James to his future cyborg as he looked at the medical data attached at the foot of her bed. "She was found in a ditch forty miles outside Berlin with barely a heartbeat remaining. The investigation is ongoing, but we know she's the victim of at least a dozen rapes and, of course, attempted murder."

"She's thirteen," said James, flipping through the clipboard. "Identified from a missing person's report filed in Poland... human trafficking victim?"

"Most likely. Probably a tourist, traveling with her parents before being abducted and sold to brothel of some kind, then used until she broke."

"Kill the broken toys, dump them somewhere discreet, then buy new ones," said James, nodding as he continued reading. "It's nothing new. What's the next step then?"

"You need to be by her when she wakes up," began Jean, "We'll transfer the girl to our facility in a few days and begin the conversion process, before telling the parents that she unfortunately died from exposure. You'll need to give her a name too."

"A name? Why not just call her by her old name?"

"Cyborgs get their past memories blocked with the conditioning process. You'll need to use her new one to cement the memory block."

"Crude, but effective," sighed Spettro. "Do these things come with a user manual?"

"I've written a few pointers for first-time handlers," said Jean, "and we have hardwired some skills into them, but otherwise we've left the conditioning and training fully to the discretion of the handlers. There are several different publications that give a general overview of the cyborgs, but that's it for reading material."

"Excellent. Can you send that to me?"

"No need, you're coming to the Agency today." said Jean. "All handlers live on campus for the first few months until their cyborgs are capable of operating on their own. After that, we leave the choice to stay or leave up to the handler."

"I understand. Let's get going then, I suppose I've got a lot of reading to do."

* * *

It, for it wasn't sure what it was really, swam through shadow, trying to piece out where It was and what was going on. It had a sense that perhaps it should be worried by this endless darkness and lack of self, but something else reassured it that this was normal and that everything would be alright. Swaying back and forth in space, it relaxed languidly into a warm embrace that gently whispered of duty, faithfulness, and devotion. With something resembling a metaphysical sigh, It felt the warmth slip away and be replaced by a refreshing chill the brought clarity and focus, sharpening It's consciousness into a coalesced and strengthened Being rather than a vague Idea.

It understood now that it was a she. A girl, specifically, and her name was Caterina. She had another sense that perhaps this wasn't the whole story, but this was tempered by the chilling focus, which told her to remember the Embrace's whispers. There was something a snap, like the click of a puzzle piece meeting its fellows, and a stream of thoughts entered her mind. Images of objects that she was told were guns, languages that she was told were English, German, and Italian, plans for attacking and defending locations of various kinds. Then another snap, and she felt like she was falling, thoughts swirling around like a nimbus before funneling into her Being before hitting something that burned and sank into her like a wave of bright, midsummer sunshine.

With a shuddering gasp, Caterina realized that she was a cyborg and could breathe, that she needed to breathe, and that she had a handler named James and needed to defend the government and people of Italy from terrorism. Aware, now, of the rising and falling of her chest, Caterina felt the tingle of the rest of her body coming online, sparkling in the darkness with sensation as her mind began to take over the body's functions. Curious, she delved further into the sensations she was receiving and found her various organs. First, her heart, which beat strongly like a drummer on the march. Then her lungs, which expanded and deflated with each breath. There were others, but a little voice told her that they were comparatively unimportant and Caterina lost interest. Experimentally, she turned her mind to her legs and arms, and found that with a little concentration she could make her fingers and toes twitch. For several moments, Caterina continually twitched her extremities back and forth, giggling to herself quietly at the novel sensation.

Then something new happened. Where before she had been wholly immersed in heat, Caterina rapidly became aware of a new tingle of cold on some part of her body. She found this distinctly unpleasant, and tried to figure out what she should do to make it go away. Hand and arms were supposed to be used to pick things up, weren't they? Pausing a moment to remember what it meant to pick something up, Caterina twitched her fingers again, then applied the feeling to her entire arm. She smiled to herself as she felt her arm stiffly lift itself off of whatever surface she was on, before falling back. Licking her metaphysical lips, Caterina tried again, and succeeded in moving her arm into the region of unpleasant cold. Bleh. With determination, Caterina flexed her other arm and flopped it into the region of cold. But now the parts on her that were cold were warm where her arms touched her body, and Caterina felt slightly better.

Time had no meaning to Caterina, and at some point she slid into the darkness from before, leaving her body and swirling about again within the ether. At some other point, she fell back into her body and set about familiarizing herself with it. Each time, she felt herself become better at controlling the many parts of her body, quickly becoming good at moving her arms and legs to get herself warm by pulling sheets of material over her. Soon, Caterina was fully in control of her body and could feel it and everything around it instinctively. At first, it was a wonderful feeling, being able to easily control something that was definitively hers. Yet as time passed, Caterina felt a growing sense of unease. It was an itchy feeling, scratching at the back of her mind with a constant feeling that something should be happening. With a start, Caterina realized that the feeling was boredom. Having finished one task, she now hungered for another but couldn't find one. Her mind needed stimulation, and the darkness that blanketed her senses didn't provide it.

So she decided to open her eyes.

The first thing that Caterina realized upon opening her eyes was that it was very, very bright.

"Nnneh," she moaned, immediately shutting her eyes again, the light prodding her painfully in the eyes. But she smiled too, as she realized that she could hear herself speak. Opening her eyes very slightly, Caterina opened her mouth again and tried again to talk. "Water, please." Her voice sounded dry and raspy, par. Someone placed a thin tube in her mouth. Feeling around the object in her mouth with her tongue, Caterina thought for a moment and remembered how to use a straw. She sucked slowly and gently, making sure not to drink too much, because drinking to quickly would make her sick. She wasn't sure where she'd learned that, but she knew it was important.

Swallowing, Caterina let go of the straw. "Thank you," she said, her voice sounding immensely better. She smiled again as she listened to herself talk. She had a voice that didn't sound scratchy or high or reedy, which would be unpleasant to listen to and make her purpose more difficult to fulfill. Instead, her voice was smooth and gently rounded off at the ends, so that the words she said fit gently into the ear and were neither too big nor too small.

"Is it too bright?" a voice asked. It was low and quiet and reminded her of safety and comfort. It was a voice that she immediately wanted to make proud.

"A little," Caterina replied, eyes still squinted mostly shut.

Footsteps moved away from her, and there was a click before the light dimmed in intervals. The footsteps returned towards her as Caterina cautiously opened her eyes fully.

The first thing she saw was a ceiling made of white tiles and long fluorescent lights, turned off now, recessed into metal fittings. Around the edges of the room were smaller recessed lights that cast a slightly yellow glow down the white walls. Blinking, she levered herself upright, sitting up on a bed covered in white sheets. Looking down, she saw herself for the first time. Her skin was pale and smooth, with the thinnest of lines where her arms met her torso and where her chest met her abdomen. That must be from the surgery that replaced her body with cyborg parts. She held her fingers up to her eyes, the light dim enough for her to see properly now, and marveled as she commanded them to move and saw the commands get carried out.

"How're you feeling?" asked the low voice, coming from her left.

Caterina turned to see a man. He wore a white shirt and black tie under a black suit with dark gray pinstripes. His jaw bore the strong line of someone who could get things done, and his eyes were a shimmering shade of blue that seemed particularly luminescent in the dim lighting. His graying hair was neatly combed and his face was cleanly shaved. He was, in her mind, the very picture of the consummate professional.

"What's your name?" asked the Professional Man.

"Caterina."

"Very good. What is your unit designation?"

"I am unit number 020100," replied Caterina automatically.

"And your serial registration number?"

"My serial registration number is IA0451RA7862."

"What is your purpose?"

"My purpose is to serve the Social Welfare Agency to combat terrorism directed against the current Italian government."

"Do you know who I am?"

"You... you must be Lieutenant James Spettro, my handler," answered Caterina, mouth suddenly going dry. "I'm sorry sir, I don't know why I didn't realize earlier."

"Don't get caught up on it," said James with a calming gesture. "You've only just got up. How're you feeling? Are you limbs working?"

"Yes sir," said Caterina, lifting an arm effortlessly and smiling in satisfaction. "It's taken a while, but I think I've got it down."

"Do you think you can walk?" asked James. Caterina nodded. "Good. Here are some clothes." He handed her a bundle of clothing. "You know how clothing works, right?"

"Yes."

"Good. Put them on. We need to go speak to the doctor to make sure you're all working."

"Alright," said Caterina, taking the clothes and swinging out of bed, James watching closely as she did so.

The swinging movement came easily to Caterina, her feet immediately orienting downward correctly and bracing for impact. Landing lightly on the balls of her feet, Caterina instinctively let her knees compress slightly, absorbing more of the force and allowing her to return to an upright position quickly and smoothly. James showed no signs of emotion as he handed Caterina first her underthings, then a simple t-shirt and running shorts. Caterina moved efficiently, no movement wasted as she slid on the simple clothing. She lacked the jerkiness and slight, unconscious insecurities of children her age, instead moving with a confidence more typical of those six or seven years older than her. Her landing had been instinctual and her movements now didn't seem forced or unnatural. Indeed, it seemed that from the very moment she woke up, Caterina was fully suited to the task of simply moving through space.

"Very interesting," James said to himself when Caterina was done dressing. "Here," he said out loud as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a long hair ribbon, "this is for you. It's traditional for handlers to give their charges a gift when they meet for the first time. Use it to tie back your hair."

Caterina looked down at the ribbon, then at her own long, dark brown hair. It wasn't messy, precisely, but it was loose and tended to scatter over her shoulders. But if there was a wind or if she was moving quickly, it would get in her field of vision. With a small smile, she silently took up the ribbon and pulled the strands of hair back, before tying it together with a simple bow at the base of her head.

"Good. Let's get going."

James opened the door and let Caterina out first, and watched as she immediately scanned left and right before stepping to the side.

"Where are we going, sir?" asked Caterina.

"Left first," said James, shutting the door to the dimly lit hallway and letting Caterina take the lead. "I'll tell you when to turn."

Caterina nodded and moved forward, James moving to stand just behind her. The girl tensed as he moved forward, and relaxed when James lagged slightly.

"Why are you tensing when I get near you?" asked James softly.

Caterina seemed surprised at the question. "Isn't the officer supposed to be in the back?" she asked. "Subordinates are supposed to take point."

"Do you know what that means?" asked James with a skeptical eyebrow.

"Er, no," said Caterina with embarrassment. "But, I know that I'm supposed to be your subordinate, right? So, I should be in front. That way, if there's an ambush, you'll be safe."

James crossed his arms and considered. "I can't fault your logic," he said after a moment. "But do you really think we'll be attacked on Agency Grounds?"

"You should always prepare for the unexpected," said Caterina instantly. "I don't remember where I learned that, but I know that it's true."

"What do you do if what you've prepared isn't enough?" asked James, nodding at Caterina to keep walking. "Turn right here, by the way."

"Then you shouldn't just give up," replied Caterina confidently, following James' directions. "You should improvise and make the best out of your situation."

"Even if you know you're going to die?"

"Then you should make sure that the mission objectives are fulfilled before you run out of blood," said Caterina with a grim smile. "After all, if you're going to die, it's better if your team can escape relatively unharmed and the mission is complete."

"I agree," said James with a smile. "But where did you learn that? Do you remember?"

"No," said Caterina again, turning to face James and walking backwards as she did so. "But it makes sense to me. I think that if I died, I wouldn't want it to be for no purpose."

"You're thinking rather grim thoughts for a kid."

"I'm a cyborg for the Social Welfare Agency," said Caterina easily, pivoting to face forwards with easy grace. "It's not like I'll live forever."

"How did you know that-?"

"I was a cyborg? Again, I'm not sure. Just another one of those things that I just knew."

"And your lifespan?"

"That was a guess. Was it correct?"

"Yes."

"Makes sense. The Agency isn't just a medical facility, it's a special operations division too, right? I'll probably be shot at some point."

"Another grim thought. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised."

Caterina laughed. "I guess not. I'm really a grim child, aren't I?"

"That you are, Caterina."

* * *

"Your girl is operating within standard bounds," said Dr. Bianchi to James after giving Caterina a fairly thorough check-up. The two men had stepped into Bianchi's office while Caterina was dressing in some clothes the Agency had for cyborgs after they'd just woken up and hadn't had a chance to get new clothes yet. "The calibrations you specified are more stringent than what we usually give our cyborgs, but the hardware can maintain that level of precision easily."

"That's good," said James with a nod. "We'll need it if she's to be an infiltrator."

"Is that what you're planning for you two?" asked Bianchi. "We never intended the Gen-ones to be infiltration units, but I suppose that with the calibrations you specified, it'd be easy enough."

"Kids can get into the tiniest places unnoticed," said James with an air of experience. "I once got a street urchin in Cairo to sneak into a warehouse I was watching and take notes on a meeting. There was no way I could have made it in myself, the only viable entrance was a loose window high up on the building. Paid the kid twenty dollars, and he came back with the most detailed transcription of a meeting I've ever seen."

"That sounds interesting. What happened to the child?"

"No idea. I paid him and he disappeared back into the crowd."

"Surely you saw where he went afterwards."

"No. In all seriousness, the child just completely vanished. I asked around for him after I took out the terrorist cell, but nobody could tell me where he went. Maybe the terrorists' friends offed him, maybe the other kids were trying to protect him, I dunno."

"Well, try to take better care of this one," said Bianchi with slight disapproval. "She costs more than twenty dollars."

"I'll keep that in mind," said James. "By the way, I wanted to ask you something. When we were walking over, Caterina was talking about some pretty grim topics."

"What do you mean?"

"We got onto the subject of what she should do if she were in a no-win scenario. She told me that she'd do her best to make sure the mission could be completed before dying. Is that normal?"

"It's not impossible," said Bianchi, turning picking up Caterina's dossier. "You did want us to condition her to be a quick thinker under pressure. That may have bled through to her personality."

"Should I be worried?"

"No, just treat her like you would normally," said Bianchi with a sigh. He put down the dossier and considered the page he'd opened to. It listed out Caterina's conditioning and its various intricacies. "The girls are unusual. We expect them to act in ways that we'd not expect children to behave..." Bianchi looked up and made eye contact with James "...but always remember that she's still a kid at heart."

"You don't have to worry about that," said James. "I know how to work with kids."

"I'm sure you do."

* * *

The following days passed without much event. Other than frequent checkups by the doctors to ensure that Caterina's muscles and nerves were all functioning, there was little disturbance in the isolation ward of the hospital, where Caterina was staying until she could transfer to the dorms. James visited often.

Caterina turned out to be a very intelligent girl, having a talent for deductive and inductive forms of reasoning. A part of this was the conditioning James had ordered, but Dr. Bianchi hypothesized that she'd been just as intelligent before being converted.

So James supplied Caterina with books. Lots and lots of books, covering math, science, history, sociology, and, most importantly, computer science and engineering.

"We live in a digital age," James had said as he brought in the first gigantic pile on a trolley, "so you'll need to know computers and digital technology inside and outside. Our mission profiles are infiltration, signals management, and signal interception. You're shooting will need to be good, but your mental faculties will need to be top notch. If I learned anything when I worked for the CIA, it was that an educated infiltrator is a living infiltrator."

So Caterina read and read and read. Then she practiced some of the math and science questions. Then she read some more, tying her hair up and away at James' suggestion so that it wouldn't interfere with her vision. It got a little boring sometimes, but Caterina didn't want to fail her handler. It helped James swung by as often as possible to help and give her something fun to do.

"What do you have for me today?" asked Caterina brightly one day as James walked in, putting aside a book on math and turning eagerly. The volume was quite substantial, but she'd worked her way through quickly and was already getting ready to start pre-calculus.

"I wanted to talk about the Caffrey Bond Heist," replied James with a smile. Caterina's attitude towards her studies was satisfyingly eager; much less troublesome than dealing with FNGs. "How's the math coming along?"

"I've been working on some of the problems and they all seem pretty simple," replied Caterina, placing a sheaf of paper on the table and spreading them out for James' inspection. "It's not horribly complicated, really. Just find the variables and plug them in."

"It'll be more complicated than that in real life, but it sounds like you're learning quickly. Good work."

Caterina beamed.

"So about that bond heist," began James, hanging his suit jacket on a chair and sitting down across from Caterina, who immediately took up a pencil and paper to take notes.

"The Caffrey Bond Heist was Neal Caffrey's first big con. Evidence shows that before this, Caffrey's experience had been limited to primarily small time cons like Find The Lady and the Fiddle Game," said James, "The Bond Heist was fairly basic in execution, showing that-" James paused for Caterina to fill in the blank.

"-that the simpler the plan, the more likely it is to go well," finished Caterina promptly.

"Good. Now the tricky thing with bond heists is perfecting the forgery, which requires paper, ink, and a deft hand…." James walked Caterina through the heist, pausing now and again for her to infer or deduce a point and explaining it if she missed. James hadn't seen anything like it in his years of experience. If he'd had just a platoon of Caterinas to work with back in the Marines...

* * *

Caterina was released to the main dorms the next day. Dr. Bianchi gave James and Caterina a rundown on Caterina's specifications before they left.

"Now, Caterina, you are a Second Generation model," Bianchi began, placing a large stack of documents on the table as he spoke. "These are your full specifications. They detail your maximum theoretical pull strength, sensory upgrades, and organ replacements, among other things. The most important, however, is the 4G capable, six-way cellular and radio transmitter/receiver that's been implanted into your skull."

James and Caterina, who had her hair tied back, low on her head, with the ribbon James had given her, both raised an eyebrow in almost the exact same manner. Bianchi chuckled to himself. James was really rubbing off on his girl.

"Yes, yes, I know it's rather unusual, but it's important for your mission profile. The transmitter is broken up into two sections, one behind each ear, and operated synchronously. They transmit to a jawbone speaker system that transmits sound from your jaw directly into your inner ear, so you don't need a headset. You can easily synch a throat mike to your transmitters, making it possible to speak without making any audible noise. Note, however, that the transmitters had to be dispersed across your cranium, whereas they're normally packaged into a smaller device, thinning the bone in your skull. You're already weaker in that area than the Gen-ones, but this has made it worse. A standard shot to the head can actually kill you, so be careful."

"That's good to know," said James.

"Don't worry, I'll keep my head down," said Caterina.

"Moving along," continued Bianchi, "you may have noticed that there are ridges at the base of your ears. To open them, you have to push in and slide up. This will expose a USB port that you can use with a computer to transmit data to any system within range of a cellular tower. Each channel operates independently and can link to the combat radios we use in the field, and every transmission is scrambled with a five million character random number generator that rearranges the data stream to secure it."

"That kind of tickles," said Caterina, opening a port experimentally. "It's weird thinking about having this sort of hardware stuck into my head."

"You'll get used to it," said Bianchi with a shrug.

"Is there an operating system that comes with this?" asked James, peering at the USB port with curiosity.

"Sort of," said Bianchi. "There's some firmware and a small scale hacking suite loaded onto some SSDs at the back of the occipital bone. The data suite allows Caterina to monitor transmissions, listen in on phone or radio conversations, and perform other low to moderate level signals intelligence work, while the hacking suite should be enough to get into most consumer level security systems. It's not the best thing we could come up with, and more sophisticated work will need to be done with a laptop, but it should be enough for most of your work."

"How much disk space do I have?" asked Caterina, shutting the USB port as James sat back down.

"We managed to fit the better part of 40 gigabytes into your occipital bone," said Bianchi with a smug sort of grin. "Rather impressive work for the Science Division, if I do say so myself. Dr. Marino spent three straight all-nighters designing it."

"I'd buy you all a beer, but I think I'd be broke afterwards," said James with a grin.

"Thanks, but we already had an office party," said Bianchi, returning the grin. "Anyway. Do you have any other questions?"

"What's the power supply for these things?" asked James, sitting back down besides Caterina.

"Eh, I could tell you the details, but I think you'd get bored," said Bianchi with an apologetic smile. "It's rather complicated, but the end result is that there's a battery that creates a potential difference when it's heated. Then the current is drawn through normal use, and then recharges automatically when it's not being used."

"That exists?"

"Oh yes. You Americans figured it out actually."

"Huh. I guess I must be a bit out of the loop."

"How long do I have before the battery runs out?" asked Caterina, bringing the adults back on topic.

"For just communications and transmissions, practically infinite," said Bianchi. "If you do anything more strenuous, like cracking a network's security, you have about five minutes of continuous use."

"That's... not a lot," said Caterina unhappily.

"It's the best we can do," said Bianchi with a shrug. "I know it's not much, but we compensated for that."

"With what?"

"These." Bianchi pulled a small, hard plastic case out from under his desk and opened it. Inside, lying in foam padding usually used to protect firearms, were a pair of black, yellow, and white-colored over-ear headphones.

"These are based off of the Ultrasone Edition 8 series of over-ear headphones," began Dr. Bianchi as James' eyebrows raised and Caterina blinked in surprise. "They're supposed to be wired, but we made it possible to use them wirelessly. However, we've replaced the head band with a series of high capacity lithium-polymer batteries on a flexible backing. If you're running near the end of your internal battery life, you can open one of your USB ports and connect your headphones with the touch of a button." Bianchi demonstrated, pulling out the headphones and pressing on a spot on the foam padding. A USB connector slid out from a small slot that was hidden from normal view.

"Very clever," said James.

"That's not all," continued Bianchi. "The headphones are noise canceling, but we've changed the external plating so that you can pop out the baffling and have full situational awareness." Again, Bianchi demonstrated, pressing on the aluminum outer shell of the headphones and rotating it slightly with two fingers. The cover slid out gently, leaving a thin gap for sound to come through. "The internal electronics are waterproofed and housed in a sealed container, but we've made it so that you can open it and repair the internals if they get damaged."

There was a moment of silence while James and Caterina stared at the gadget.

"Can I put them on?" asked Caterina, coming to grips with the fact that these were, in fact, hers.

Bianchi wordlessly handed them to Caterina. She made a few adjustments, before slipping them over her ears.

"These are marvelous," said Caterina after a moment, eyes sparkling with joy. "They're so comfortable! And so cool looking! I can't wait to try this on some music!"

"I've got some you can listen to in a moment," said James. "Can I get a try after you?"

"Of course!"

"Right, then let's finish this up. Is there anything else we need to go over, Bianchi?"

"Nothing that you can't read later," said Dr. Bianchi with a chuckle. "The stack is indexed, so you only need consult the table of contents."

"I'll take that to my office later then," said James. "Caterina, do you have any questions?"

"Nope," said Caterina, bouncing in place impatiently. "As long as there's nothing that will effect my ability to perform on a mission, it's fine."

"Right then, let's get going."

* * *

The walk to the dorms, headphones securely on Caterina's ears, was uneventful in the extreme. As luck would have it, all the girls were either on a mission or doing a group exercise somewhere in the training grounds. The dorms were completely empty when James and Caterina went to drop off her Agency-issued clothes, the only other possessions she had at the moment. James went to get something while Caterina put the clothes away. He came back with a khaki messenger bag, with black strap and buckles, slung over his shoulder.

"What's in there?" asked Caterina, putting away the last of her blouses.

"This is yours," said James, putting the entire bag onto Caterina's table with a quiet thunk.

Caterina blinked. "Everything?"

"Everything in this bag, yes," said James.

"Can I open it?" asked Caterina. James nodded and stepped back as Caterina stepped forward.

Raising a hand, Caterina gently ran her hand down the front of the messenger bag. The bag was made of a tough canvas with ripstop woven ballistic nylon straps and fasteners. The top was held shut with a pair of black, plastic fasteners, which Caterina clicked open.

Inside were a variety of things. At the front was small notebook and a pencil case, with several pencils and a block eraser. There was also some sheet music, a set of computer screwdrivers with needle-nose pliers, several palette knives, and a set of lockpicks. In the next pocket was a seven by seven inch case that most likely held a gun and a sheathed combat knife.

But what Caterina honed in on was the laptop that lay in the last, foam lined, pocket. The ten by fouteen inch computer had an outer case made of brushed aluminium that had been dyed black, bore no company insignias, and had a large number and variety of ports lining the side. Taking a deep breath, then letting it out slowly, Caterina carefully removed the device from the bag and placed it on the table, taking time to slowly scan the exterior and drink in its appearance.

"You got me a laptop?" she asked, voice tiny and awed as she ran her fingers down the sides, not quite believe what she was seeing.

"Yup. It's basically a highly customized MacBook Pro," said James, placing his hands in his pockets and trying to look nonchalant. "I had the Science Division remove the logic board and the screen and put them in a slightly larger frame. We changed the the HDD into a solid state drive and used the extra space to integrate more RAM and a secondary processor board. There's also a wireless permalink to your implants, so that only you can use it. The battery and power supply have been upgraded to handle the load, and a heat management system is underneath the main hardware, in addition to a litany of other things that make sure the thing doesn't break."

"It's so much for one person to use," said Caterina quietly, her mind processing the information easily from her lessons during her isolation period. "Are you really sure this should be mine?"

"Caterina, the Generation One cyborgs are entrusted with a handgun from the moment they awaken," said James, removing his hands from his pockets and stepping forward to lean on the back of a chair. "Their purpose is to kill for this Agency, and so they are entrusted with deadly weapons immediately. Your purpose is to be this agency's ghost. To see and hear what is not meant to be seen and heard, then leave without a trace. This laptop will be the key for your role. I entrust this with you, then, with the belief that you will use it to the best of the your ability to serve the Social Welfare Agency in its fight against the enemies of the state. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Caterina firmly, looking up to meet James' eyes. "I do. I promise that I will use this to the best of my ability to serve the Agency."

"Good," said James, reaching out to grasp Caterina's hands. "Then know that as long as you follow this promise, you can never fail me, Caterina. We are a fratello, and we will support each other."

"Yes sir," said Caterina, squeezing James' hands firmly with a serious expression.

"Call me James," said James. "Brothers and sisters should not be so formal to each other."

"Yes sir," said Caterina with a smile. "But I'll still call you sir, sir. Just because."

James smiled back. "Mischievous little girl. Come now, let's have a listen of some music with those headphones."


	2. Practice Makes Perfect

The Social Welfare Agency gymnasium was of a surprising size. Yet upon further inspection, it really made a lot of sense. All the exercise machines had diagnostic equipment built into them, allowing both handlers and researchers to observe the cyborgs' physiology as they exercised. The machines also ran without the diagnostic equipment, of course, meaning that the handlers could use them as well. Considering that Section One and the on-site GIS used the gymnasium as well, it really was very logical to have a fairly comprehensive gym.

There was, of course, the eighth-kilometer indoor running track, which ran in a circle above and around the exercise machines, the free weights, and the combination basketball court and football pitch in the center of the gymnasium. Attached to this main area was a multipurpose space, about 250 square meters in size, that could be used as a dojo, a gymnastics area, or, as was the case today, an improvised ballet studio.

The soft, tinkling strains of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" hovered in the air as James entered the gymnasium, stepping lightly to avoid disturbing the delicate music. It originated from the multipurpose space, and he quietly made his way over. Stepping inside the slightly ajar door, he was immediately struck by the impressive grace of the dancer in the center of the improvised stage. It took him a moment to realize that it was Caterina who, dressed in the typical ballet leotard, with her hair tied back and low on her head, was dancing in smooth, graceful movements that typically took decades to achieve.

"Is she not wonderful?" whispered Olga, standing nearby. "See how she arches her back! Ah, if only all the girls had this grace."

"She dances very beautifully," agreed James, speaking at the same volume. "How long did it take to learn the routine?"

"Mere hours," replied Olga with pride. "Your girl is a fast learner. She will do you well in the field."

James nodded. "She's picking up computers very quickly as well. We've already started drills on the Agency's dummy server."

"That is no mean feat," complemented Olga. "You appear to have something of a prodigy on your hands."

James merely nodded to this, a small smile on his lips as he stood in silence as the music came to an end. Both adults clapped enthusiastically as Caterina gave a deep bow before springing back up with a great smile on her face.

"James! I thought I heard you!" she cried, running up with a skip and a hop. "Did you see me dancing?"

"You did wonderfully," said James with a grin, giving her a pat on the head. "I don't know much about ballet though. Olga?"

"Yes, yes, you are perfectly correct," said Olga with a nod. "Your dancing was excellent, Caterina. Your foot slipped on the third step, but that is minor compared to everything else. Well done."

"Thank you!" Caterina squeaked, blushing at the praise from both adults. Clearing her throat abashedly, she turned to James. "Did you need me for something, James?"

"We need to practice hand to hand, remember?" asked James. "Go and change your clothes, then grab one of your protein bars. Olga and I will prepare the dojo."

"Yes sir!" said Caterina enthusiastically before running off to change.

"Are you sure you want her to fight immediately?" asked Olga as she helped James roll out the mats to cover the entire floor. "The dance routine I have taught her is not easy."

"Have you seen the energy bars the cyborgs get? They have an absurd amount of nutrients in them," said James. "Besides, she needs to learn how to fight when tired."

"Very well then," said Olga with a shrug. "She's your girl. Just don't break her."

"I know when to draw the line, Olga, don't worry," reassured James. "You'll have your little ballerina back safe and sound."

The conversation drifted off towards the mundanities of life before Caterina returned in light, close fitting clothes and munching on a small, dry energy bar. It gave her back her energy, and the dry, chalky flavor washed away quickly with a sip of water, so it wasn't all that bad.

"See, look at the wrapper," said James, having Caterina hold up the bar for Olga's inspection. "5000 calories per bar, Olga."

"Well I know what I should eat if I want to retire!" laughed Olga before heading for the door. "It is good that cyborg metabolisms run faster than ours. As for me, I will go and have something from the cafeteria so that I do not expand like a balloon. Have fun, you two."

"Bye!" called Caterina, waving before turning to her handler. "What are we doing today, James?"

"First, have you been practicing the drills I taught you?"

"Yup!"

"Show me. Start with the first and work through them in sequence."

With a nod, Caterina set her bar and water bottle down at the edge of the matter and ran to stand in the middle of the mats, then smoothly transitioned into the first step of her drill.

James watched closely as she went through them. Her movements had snap to them, the stances were solid, and the strikes crisp. Good, she had been practicing, and she was paying attention to what she was doing. He nodded to himself. It was time to increase the difficulty.

"Very good," said James with a nod. "Jog around the room, slowly, to keep your blood going. I'm going to change."

Caterina cocked her head sideways. "Change?"

"My clothes. I can't exactly teach you something new if I'm in slacks, can I?"

Caterina grinned and nodded excitedly before setting off, moving around the room at a light jog as James went into the lockers to change. He returned quickly, wearing an outfit similar to Caterina's, though larger and cut to fit his figure.

"Caterina, stop," he called, standing in the center of the mats. "Stay where you are."

Caterina halted and looked back attentively from across the room.

"Today I'm going to teach you something very important," said James. "I'm going to teach you how to run away."

As Caterina watched, her handler changed. He was still standing, at parade rest in fact, but something about him had shifted. A shiver of fear stole through her as the kind, if occasionally stern, man who had taught her many things, disappeared with the slightest of changes in stance. Now there stood a soldier. She had known, of course, that James had once been part of the United States Military, and the knowledge that he was a two decade veteran of multiple world conflicts was something that she was reminded of every day when they trained. But here, now, for the first time, Caterina really saw what her handler was. He was a soldier, yes, but more than that, he was a Soldier. A man who had dedicated his life to the battlefield, who would do whatever it took to carry out his mission, and would quite literally destroy anything that blocked his path. This, then, was not merely a man who could fight and kill when called on, but rather a man who could and would disassemble her, dislocating limbs and tearing ligaments with casual brutality simply because it was the most efficient means of getting the job done. This man was Caterina's doom, and in that moment, she knew precisely what a woodland creature, faced with death from a pack of slavering wolves, felt like in the moments before it died.

"As a Generation Two cyborg, you know that your body is not built to the same tolerances as your sisters," said James, his voice unchanged from its normal tone, yet carrying a tangible edge that made Caterina want to hide in the nearest closet and never leave. "You must strike with the element of surprise. If you are caught in the open against a larger and stronger opponent, you will not be able to survive."

"B-but you're not stronger than me," said Caterina with impressive calm, feet unconsciously taking a stance that would allow her to run as fast as possible in the opposite direction.

"No, I'm not," granted James with a nod. "But I am a better fighter than you."

Caterina yelped and locked up in shock as her handler abruptly burst into motion with a speed no man of his age had any right to possess. Caterina had bare milliseconds to react as James suddenly appeared within striking distance, right fist drawn back for a devastating punch.

Reacting desperately, Caterina threw herself forward and around James' feet. Something within gave her the fortunate instinct to dive towards James' forward leg, preventing him from easily kicking her and ending the fight then and there. Despite the desperation of the move, Caterina's lessons in ballet and gymnastics served her well. Muscle memory kicked in as she fell, turning the dive into a smooth somersault and setting her onto her feet immediately, before she whirled to face her handler.

A foot unceremoniously buried itself into her gut, and Caterina went flying from James' kick, her low body mass offering little resistance to the many decades of training leveled behind his foot. Landing on her back in a skid, Caterina didn't have time to recover her breath before she was forced to roll right, barely avoiding James' foot as he moved to crush her chest. Pushing down hard with her arms, Caterina barely managed to launch herself upright in time to pop over James attempt to sweep her off of them. Landing in a crouch, Caterina threw herself into a backwards handspring, using the move to put some distance between herself and James while whipping her feet into the air and forcing him to dodge backwards to avoid getting his jaw shattered. This worked surprisingly well, and would have been successful if James hadn't recovered unreasonably quickly and stepped forward to place a vicious punch into her solar plexus, sending Caterina to the ground, completely winded.

"Better than I expected," said James as Caterina curled into a ball on the ground. "You lasted all of ten seconds. That's two seconds more than I thought you would do. Do you know what you did wrong?"

"I -cough- froze up -wheeze- at the beginning," managed Caterina, trying desperately to draw in breath, the looming terror of being ripped apart receding as James relaxed his stance marginally.

"Anything else?"

"I -gasp- I don't know."

"Come on, Caterina, you can do better than this," said James sharply, prodding her with a foot. "This is combat. Out of everything you did, what did you NOT do?"

"I..." Caterina paused, mind racing as she thought over her actions. The lesson was supposed to be in how to run away. She hadn't run, exactly, but running and avoiding were really the same thing in close quarters, and there wasn't enough room to really turn the fight into a chase anyway. She'd dived to his forward leg, which was a good move, and had gotten back up quickly to a fighting stan-

James smiled minutely, face otherwise locked into a grim look, as he saw the light of comprehension dawn in his cyborg's eyes.

"I didn't fight back," said Caterina firmly, getting back to her feet with new-found strength as James backed away. "You said that you're a better fighter than me, but I'm still stronger. I should have counter attacked and knocked you down, giving me time to run."

"Let's see you put it into action then," James replied, stance again shifting into the looming presence that promised a violent death. "Go."

Caterina immediately bolted for the door, sprinting almost flat out as James gave chase. Then, just before she got to the door, Caterina stopped, pivoted, and planted a textbook sidekick into James' gut, driving the wind from him. Caterina allowed a moment of satisfaction to flicker across her mind. Yes! She'd succee-

*swish-WHAM*

Suddenly, Caterina found herself on the ground again.

"Better," said James with a nod, backing away as Caterina got to her feet. "That would have worked against a less well trained opponent, but has a few flaws. What are they?"

"You're better than me?" asked Caterina, wincing. "Umm... and I had to plant my feet?"

"Caterina, you'll always need to plant your feet," said James flatly.

"Ah, um... I.. I didn't take advantage of the hit?"

"And what should you have done instead?"

"Umm... followed through with a second strike?"

"That could work, anything else?"

"Kept running?"

"That could work as well," said James, shifting his weight forward. "Try it and see."

So Caterina tried to run from James, again, and was thrown to the ground, again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

There were a few bright moments. Once, Caterina had tried leapfrogging over James. That had worked well, but she'd mis-stepped on the landing and gotten the wind kicked out of her as a result. There was also a moment when she'd pulled off a perfectly executed throw that launched James across the room. That moment of brilliance was marred by over-eagerness, as Caterina had subsequently closed the distance to deliver a finishing blow and gotten thrown into the wall for her trouble. Still, she was improving quickly, and after countless times of throwing his cyborg into the ground, smashing her against the wall, and generally enacting violence upon her person, James called an end to the training session.

"You're doing well, Caterina," he said, voice once again friendly, as he helped her up. "You almost had a chance this bout. How is your ankle?"

"It hurts, but I think its okay," said Caterina quietly, wincing in pain and leaning up against her handler to keep weight off of the injured limb. "It might be sprained."

James nodded. Caterina had tried to stop herself getting thrown into the wall with her leg. It had almost worked, but the landing had been off. Clever thinking though. "We'll have the doctors take a look at it," he said, giving her a small smile. "Come along."

Caterina nodded and picked up her water bottle before limping along beside her handler, holding on to his arm for extra support.

"James?"

"Yes, Caterina?"

"Did I do well today?"

"Yes. Yes you did, Caterina."

Caterina smiled to herself happily and stepped a little closer to her handler. "Good."

* * *

Several weeks passed. All to soon, a new month dawned, and with it came the Cyborg Evaluation Examinations.

Conducted on a monthly basis, the CEEs were supposed to be nothing more than a diagnostic to determine the operational capabilities of the cyborgs. Standard training costs and procedures implied that all fratelli should be able to meet a certain level of performance that allowed for maximum mission efficiency, and the diagnostic was designed to make sure that there were no complications.

Consequently, the CEEs were the primary way the girls competed against each other.

It probably wasn't the most efficient thing to do, from a statistical or economical standpoint, but keeping the girls from behaving like the CEEs were literally the most important thing in the world had proved to be impossible. Doctor Bianchi theorized that the cyborgs were using it as a measurement of personal worth to their handlers and to the Agency, but the complications that arose from individual psychology threw far too many wrenches into any theory to allow anything to make sense.

In the end, the best the handlers had managed was to get the girls to keep it friendly. The competition became constructive rather than destructive, but it did have one disadvantage: new comers were inevitably a bit behind.

Caterina's hands flicked across the table, her Px4's parts laid out on a clean cloth across the counter in her shooting stall. The parts clicked together with practiced ease, turning from so many bits of metal into a deadly weapon in less than a minute.

"Very good," said James with a nod, giving Caterina a pat on the shoulder. He was wearing his quintessential dark pinstriped suit, while Caterina was dressed in a simple dark shirt and slacks. "You've got the motions nicely down."

"Are you sure you need to leave?" asked Caterina nervously, racking back the slide to eject a non-existent round to mask her jitteriness.

"Yes, Caterina, it's the rules," said James, turning to leave the stall. "You'll do fine, Caterina. Stay calm and shoot just like we practiced."

"Yes sir," said Caterina quietly, taking a deep breath and planting her hands on the stall to ground herself before putting on her safety glasses and ear protection. James nodded approvingly before leaving, walking down past the other stalls and the cyborgs within them.

Caterina had taken residence in the last stall on the range. Next to her was Henrietta, who had assembled her P239 and was standing ready to begin as well. She gave him a small wave as he passed, which James nodded back to. Triela was next, and was finishing her final checks on her P230. She glanced to and nodded at him before returning to her work. Rico occupied the fourth stall, standing calmly and facing down range. She flashed James a bright smile as he passed before returning to her contemplation of the target, placed 5.5 yards distant. Angelica's stall was after Rico's. She looked nervous as well, which James found a little troubling but didn't stop to worry about it. He gave her as best a reassuring smile as he could, which seemed to help a little. The other girls, James was unfortunately unfamiliar with, but they nodded or said hello as well. James returned their greetings before leaving the building to join the other handlers in the observation room.

"Your girl looks nervous," observed Marco, lighting a cigarette.

"So does yours," replied James, pulling out his own pack but unable to find his own lighter. "Meh. Must've left it on my desk. May I borrow your lighter, Marco?"

Marco nodded and passed James his lighter.

"Thanks," said James, lighting up and taking a slow pull as he handed the lighter back to Marco. "As I was saying," James continued, breathing out a small cloud of smoke, "your girl looks nervous as well."

"Angelica has...," said Marco before taking a drag on his own cigarette. He exhaled a stream of smoke before continuing. "...not been up to standard for a while."

James gave Marco a glance as the range master announced the exam's tasks for the cyborgs. "Have you been training her?"

"I've been trying," said Marco quietly, mouth tightening in displeasure as the girls all stepped forward and loaded their weapons, racked the slide, and stood ready to fire. "But nothing seems to stick." He drew again on his cigarette. "The conditioning is reducing her memory faster than I can patch it."

"I wouldn't be so quick to judge the conditioning," said James, watching closely as Caterina shifted her stance to correct herself. "Good form, Caterina, keep it up..."

"What do you mean?" asked Marco, eyebrow raised.

"Well as handlers, our job is to train the cyborg," said James, with a careless shrug. "It's up to us to get it right, yeah?"

Caterina breathed in deeply, then exhaled slowly, gaze centered on the torso-shaped target across the way.

The exercise was fairly simple. Her ear protectors were fitted with speakers. On the first beep, Caterina needed to aim and fire two rounds in 1.5 seconds into a one foot space. Easy enough at first, but the task got harder. After the first two, she then needed to wait for another beep and fire off three rounds. Then four, then five, then six, and onwards until she missed. In 1.5 seconds. James could finish the exercise with ten rounds in 1.5 seconds. If Caterina could manage that, well, that'd be very good, wouldn't it? She and James had been training for nearly a month now, but she hadn't gotten to 10 shots. And then there was the rifle, and then hand to hand, and then-

Caterina stopped herself and took another calming breath, waiting for the range master to give the go ahead. Don't think negative thoughts. Just shoot.

"Ready," warned one of the Section 1 proctors, his voice piped into her headset. Caterina braced herself.

*beep*

*bang, bang*

Caterina's mouth blew a breath out as she observed her work. Two shots, fairly close together, directly into the chest. A solid start, and Caterina would take any encouragement she could get. Calmly, she reloaded and signaled that she was ready for her next set.

"Ready," warned the proctor again.

*beep*

*bang, bang, bang*

Still good. Drifting a little to the left and the right, but the third shot had been almost on top of the first group. Caterina reloaded again, and signaled her readiness.

*beep*

*bang, bang, bang, bang*

Ergh. Her shots were a little wide this time, but still within bounds. As she reloaded, Caterina, bit her lip anxiously. The next set was usually her limit. She'd been unable to break the five shot barrier in training. Another deep breath, and she was ready.

*beep*

*bang, bang, bang, bang, bang*

"Yes!" Caterina quietly cheered, moving to reload. Five shots, all grouped within the target! But she had to calm down. Forcing her grin down and taking another calming breath, Caterina finished reloading and signaled her readiness.

*beep*

*bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang*

Caterina closed her eyes and sighed. Well, she'd improved at least. Calmly, Caterina ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber, then safed her weapon and placed it on the table to await the others.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Marco evenly, giving James a look.

"Nothing, I'm just saying that we need to train our cyborgs," said James, drawing on his cigarette. "Hey Jean! You're cyborg is doing well!"

"Eight shots is alright, I suppose," replied Jean with a nod. "We'll have to see on the rest of the course."

Marco silently considered James as the man drifted off, talking to the others about their cyborgs. At the time, it had seemed like James had been making a pointed statement, but maybe he'd been imagining it? Angelica was a sore topic at any time of the day, so perhaps he'd been overly sensitive?

"Ah, it seems that all the girls are finished," said James, drifting back and stubbing out his cigarette. With an affable smile, he gestured for Marco to follow as he headed for the door. "Come on, let's see how they did."

"We can see how they did, their scores are posted on the screens," pointed out Marco, following James despite himself. He'd really have preferred to wait outside the firing range.

"Ah, but it'll be good for the cyborgs if we talk to them," said James, holding open the door as Giuseppe and some of the others exited as well. Marco couldn't think of an argument against that and followed the crowd into the firing range, where the cyborgs were putting their guns away.

"Caterina," said James, striding up to his somewhat dismayed looking cyborg. "How did you do?"

"Five," said Caterina quietly.

"Really? Good work," said James approvingly, patting her on the head with a grin. "You've broken your barrier."

"Henrietta got six," said Caterina despondently.

"She's hardly at the top of the bracket," said James with a roll of his eyes. "Besides, it's not like you've had a year to practice. We've only been shooting for a month."

"Triela got seven," continued Caterina morosely. "And I think Rico got eight. I can't do this right! Why can't I do this right?"

"Stop it, Caterina," said James sternly, kneeling down to speak to her directly. "Caterina, this isn't supposed to be a competition. Even if you turn it into one, then it should be one against only yourself. You've improved far more quickly than most people I know! You should be proud."

Caterina breathed deeply, then gave her handler a wry smile. "I guess. Thanks James."

"You say that like it's something," said James, standing back up. "It's only the truth, Caterina."

"Still," said Caterina, turning to pack away her weapon. "Thank you. It... means a lot."

"Well you're welcome. Now come on, we've got more to do."

Caterina nodded and snapped the fasteners on her pistol's transport case shut, then followed James out the door. As they walked, they passed Marco and Angelica.

"Six shots is good enough, I suppose," Marco was saying. "If you can do this well on the other tests, you might be ready to go back on duty."

Angelica's radiant grin outshone the beams of sunlight coming through the open door.

The rest of the gunnery exercises went pretty much the same. Caterina managed to either hit or slightly exceed or her previous records, which both cyborg and handler chalked up to adrenaline. Rico managed to get the highest scores in the long rifle test, and Henrietta's aggressive application of her P90 went uncontested by a wide margin. Overall though, Caterina was still at the bottom end of the bracket, beaten by all of the first generation cyborgs by of at least several points. It was disheartening, to say the least, but James endeavored to keep Caterina's spirits up, to fairly good success

The last gunnery test was the shooting house. Rico and Angelica went first. Their attack was fairly mundane, with both cyborgs advancing smoothly through the rooms and out the other end at a good pace, setting a fairly average time. All targets were hit and no civilian casualties were accrued. The next run was Caterina's. She was paired with Triela.

"How much have you and James practiced this?" asked Triela, standing beside the door, holding her MP7 at the ready.

"Um, enough, I think," said Caterina, fingering her MP5 nervously. "But, you know, I haven't worked with you or the others before."

"Well," said Triela, endeavoring to reassure Caterina. "You'll be okay. The rules are all the same, so just keep your cool, 'kay?"

"Yeah," said Caterina, breathing in deeply, then out.

"Ready," warned the test proctor, before-

*beep*

"Flash and clear," whispered Triela.

Caterina nodded, pulled the pin on a flashbang grenade, cooked it for a second, then kicked the door in and threw. It went off almost immediately, with just enough delay that Caterina was safely out of the blast of light and noise.

Triela was caught slightly off guard, expecting a longer interval between the throw and the explosion, but adapted quickly. With efficient three round bursts, Triela perforated the targets on her side of the room, taking only enough shots to finish business. Caterina, meanwhile, was messier. Her bursts consisted of five or more rounds and at least two tended to miss the target. Passing, but only just.

"Well, it's, er, not bad, per se," said Triela awkwardly, as the proverbial dust settled.

Caterina gave her a flat look. "It's just that everyone else is better, right?"

"Well, um..." Triela looked away, scratching her head. "...yeah."

And so it continued. Surprisingly, Caterina kept up well with the experienced older cyborg and played her role well, following the standard instructions for storming a room to textbook accuracy. But her shots were still messy, spaced out along the targets, and one bullet even grazed a civilian. It was an acceptable performance, but not much more than that.

"What I mean is: yes it could be better," said Triela as they exited the shooting house, weapons slung on their shoulders, "but it's not bad. It's just... not as good as me."

"But I want to be as good as you," said Caterina, a little sadly. "I don't like being bad at this."

Triela wasn't really sure what to say to that. "Well... there's not much you can do except practice," she eventually said with a shrug. "if you want, and there's time, I can practice with you later."

"Would you really?" asked Caterina, perking up.

"Of course," said Triela with a friendly shoulder bump. "We gotta help each other help our handlers, right?"

Caterina nodded with a small bounce, feeling much better. "Mmhm!"

The shooting house signaled the beginning of the end of the evaluations. There were a few climbing exercises and obstacle course to run after the shooting house, but it was nothing that any of the cyborgs considered important. All of them could finish the course in less than three minutes, and after that it just got rather tedious trying to improve. The only interesting thing that everyone had to do was the hand-to-hand evaluation, conducted by a GIS trooper against the cyborgs, with one cyborg to each trooper in their own training arena. The idea was that the GIS troopers were all about the same skill level, so they formed a good, consistent baseline that could be used to measure the cyborgs.

Caterina breathed slowly and deeply, eyes closed as she stood on the edge of the mats at the training arena. She was wearing the light, close fitting clothes that she trained with James in, and had tied her hair back up high on her head. The small arena was only 400 square feet, twenty feet along each side, and gave her a lot less room to maneuver. On the other hand, it was also supposed to be used for at most five or six people, presumably to learn advanced hand to hand techniques of some sort. Long mirrors ran the length of the walls, illuminated by bright, halogen lamps but well ventilated and air conditioned to keep the room comfortable to work in.

"Treat this like you would a mission," she whispered to herself, remembering James' advice before he'd let her go. "Do everything that I've taught you to do, and you'll be okay."

* * *

"What exactly have you been teaching Caterina, James?" asked Giuseppe as the handlers gathered in the facility's lounge.

"You have been playing your cards rather close to the vest on that," agreed Hilshire, moving towards a table nearby.

James followed them, pulling a deck of cards out of his suit jacket's inside pocket and beginning to shuffle them. "Oh, this and that," he began, glancing casually at a nearby television. The news was on, and it was saying something about the latest round of austerity measures Germany was trying to push through the EU. What was this, the sixth or the seventh round? He really didn't envy the guys up in the European Commission... "It's been evasion, mostly, and some grappling. That's on top of her training for house-breaking, gymnastics, and such, of course, but I feel like she'll be good enough to pass the test. Anyone up for poker?"

Hilshire, Marco, and surprisingly Jean all raised their hands and sat down around the table as James continued shuffling.

"You're being very vague," said Jean, voice betraying nothing to the casual observer. "Care to elaborate?"

"On what topic?" asked James lightly, dealing everyone two cards.

"What did you mean by evasion, for instance?" asked Marco as James laid out three cards facedown on the table.

"Well, considering her role," said James with a small smile, "I figured that she'd better learn to run before she learns to fight. Big blind of five euros seem good, gentlemen?"

"Sure," agreed Hilshire, laying down a five euro bill. Marco, to his right, laid down three euros for a small blind and received no objection. "But isn't learning to run first counterintuitive? Much better that she knows how to defend herself in a fight."

"Perhaps, but she can't take damage like your girls can," replied James evenly as he placed down five euros. "Caterina can't very well steal information if she's dead, can she?"

"Perhaps not, but she won't be confined to those operations," said Jean as Marco matched the bet, followed by Hilshire. After a moment's consideration, Jean also called James' bet.

"But then you'll be there to back us up, right?" asked James as he flipped the three cards facedown cards over. An eight, a king, and an ace.

"Not necessarily," said Jean. "Nobody can predict when Caterina will need to fight on her own."

"Of course not, but it's still not her mission," said James, knocking twice on the table to signal that he checked. "If people need to be killed, I will do so."

"You can't coddle your cyborg, Spettro," said Marco flatly, also checking. "They won't learn unless you push them."

"Perhaps. Each cyborg is different, however, and I find that Caterina learns best if shown the way to the water trough," said James as Hilshire placed three more euros on the table.

"You sound like my brother," said Jean disapprovingly, calling Hilshire's bet. "I always say that he is too soft on Henrietta."

"Perhaps he could buy her less perfume," agreed James smoothly, also calling. "I can smell her when I walk into the same room."

Marco folded. "Have you been shopping for your cyborg yet, James?"

"I intend to do so after the exams," James replied, burning one card and placing out the next card on the board. A ten. "Depending on how well she does, I'll see about what to get her. Check."

"No perfume, I gather?" said Hilshire. "Also check."

"Five euros," said Jean.

"No perfume," agreed James, calling Jean's bet. Hilshire folded, and James laid out the final card. Another eight.

"What then?" asked Marco. "I know Hilshire prefers to buy Triela teddy bears."

"Those are collectable, you know," said Hilshire, leaning back in his chair. "Besides, it's the thought that counts, right?"

"I suppose," said James, deciding to check. "But it's best, I think, to put more analysis into what you're getting someone. It makes them feel special and easier to work with."

"You realize that the cyborgs don't really care, as long as it's from you?" asked Jean, also checking.

"Perhaps, but I haven't ever bought Caterina anything," said James. "I feel that I should make this an event of sorts, if only for personal preference. Shall we showdown?"

Jean flipped his cards. A jack and a queen. "Straight, ten to ace."

James nodded appreciatively. "Very nice." He then flipped his cards. An eight and an ace. "Full house, aces full of eights."

The group blinked collectively as James collected his winnings. Only forty seven euros, but enough for a nice dress, perhaps. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said, with another small smile, "for financing part of my impending trip to the shops in Rome. Shall we have another round?"

* * *

Caterina breathed out slowly as she faced the GIS member standing at the opposite end of the room.

"Are you ready?" asked the trooper, flexing his fingers. "I'm not allowed to go easy on you."

"Yes," said Caterina determinedly. "Give me your worst."

"Confident?" asked the trooper, pacing to the side. Caterina turned to keep him in her line of sight, sliding a foot out into a basic defensive stance.

"Perhaps too much," said Caterina with a small smile, shifting again and leaving her feet out of alignment.

The trooper picked up on this. "Yes, perhaps," he said, before darting forward with a right hook.

Caterina dropped straight down, her misaligned feet destabilizing her and allowing her center of gravity to move quickly. The same idea had been used in making fighter jets more maneuverable. Now it made Caterina slippery and agile as she somersaulted across the floor popped upwards, handily avoiding the trooper's follow-up kick, and moved into a handspring that carried her to the opposite wall.

The trooper followed her, dashing forwards and winding up for another punch as Caterina moved towards the mirrors. Still in midair, Caterina, moved her legs in a scissoring motion as she reoriented to face the floor, almost as if she were performing a leap or jump in a ballet routine. In this case, however, the legs captured the trooper's arm just behind the wrist and in front of the shoulder joint as he punched, immobilizing it. With a sharp twist, Caterina yanked the man off his feet, tossing him across the room as she landed on the balls of her feet and rotated gracefully into a solid defensive stance.

With a thud, the trooper hit the ground across the way and slid several feet. With a groan, he got back to his feet and took stock of the situation.

From what he had seen and heard from past diagnostics, the cyborgs should have been trained to attack, pressing forward relentlessly until the enemy was defeated. Yet this one was being strange. Instead of charging, as he'd expected, and engaging him in direct combat, she was standing where she'd landed, waiting patiently for him to get back to his feet.

"Why aren't you attacking?" he asked himself, stepping forward cautiously. Caterina was unmoved, pivoting precisely to match his movements. Furrowing his brows, the trooper feinted to the right, then struck left with a sharp roundhouse towards her legs.

Caterina jumped, hopping over the trooper's kick and retreated across the room, deflecting a second kick as she moved. Staying defensive, Caterina kept her feet mobile as she moved towards the mirrors on the opposite side of the room, sliding from side to side to avoid blows and rarely taking the initiative to make an attack. The trooper got increasingly frustrated as her smooth and graceful movements, bred from her long hours of ballet and hand-to-hand training, easily flowed around the trooper's quick and efficient attacks. But he was not as fast as James, and Caterina was used to James. Her movements were swift and sure, trained to avoid the blows of a man who could attack faster than she could blink.

This trooper did not attack faster than Caterina could blink.

Finally, as they neared the mirrors, the trooper lost his temper. With a frustrated growl, he threw his right hand into a punch toward's Caterina's gut, turning at the hip to increase his attack's power. It was a typical move, taught and practiced by many. Useful too, and almost universally effective to gain the upper hand in a fight, especially against a less experienced opponent. But Caterina was not less experienced than the trooper, and she certainly wasn't tired or damaged enough to let the fist make contact.

Caterina slid to her left, neatly avoiding the fist and skipping once to gain some distance, before snapping her right leg up and into the trooper's kidney. As he doubled over with a sharp yelp, Caterina retracted her right foot, planted it firmly, and kicked her left foot into the trooper's backside with a smooth side kick, sending him stumbling forward with a complete lack of control. Instead of hitting the ground, and letting friction stop him and getting up, the trooper tried unsuccessfully to regain his balance. Flailing, he didn't realize he was headed into the mirrors before he hit them.

Caterina winced at the sharp crack of glass splitting into pieces. Perhaps she'd kicked him a little too hard?

"Are you alright?" she asked, dropping her guard slightly as the trooper slumped to the ground. A low groan answered her, and for a moment Caterina was concerned that she'd actually damaged the man. Her fears were allayed by the trooper weakly flopping an arm and chuckling dryly.

"I'll be okay, kid," he said with a groan, levering himself upright, the tinkle of falling glass belying several shards falling off the mirror. "You didn't kick me too hard."

"Oh, good," said Caterina with a sigh of relief. "So, uh, how'd I do?"

"Very good, you're evasion is excellent," said the trooper, hauling himself to his feet. "All things considered..."

Caterina leaned forward in anticipation.

The trooper smiled. "...I'd say you passed with flying colors."

Faintly vibrating with excitement, Caterina gathered herself upwards, mimicking James' posture when he was being formal about something. Standing at attention, she very formally shook the GIS trooper's hand.

"Thank you for the evaluation," she said, keeping her voice tight and controlled, just like James had taught her.

"You're very welcome," said the trooper with equal gravity.

Ending the handshake, Caterina stood stock still for four seconds before she couldn't hold it in any longer. With an excited squeal, Caterina took off, with a bound, through the doorway to report back to James and tell him about how she did.

* * *

Caterina twirled in place, giggling, her brand new skirt flaring out into a sheet of pink under her darker red blouse.

"I take it you like it?" asked James, hands in his pockets as he looked on. The fratello was standing in a shop in Rome, a small pile of clothes stacked up nearby beside a cheerful looking sales clerk. Taking a brief mental tally, James realized his bill was going to reach into the several hundreds of euros, possibly even breaking the one thousand barrier.

Good thing this was going onto his handler expense account then.

"Of course! It's a brilliant outfit!" said Caterina happily, bowing into a curtsy before the mirror. "Enchanté de vous recontrer, monsieur. Ça va?"

"Trés bien, merci beaucoup, mademoiselle," replied James. "That's the last outfit we picked out. Any ones you don't like?"

"No, I like all of them!" said Caterina, swirling past in an imaginary dance as her feet stepped into a rudimentary ballet routine. "Can we get them all?"

"Oh, I don't see why not," said James. "After all, this is technically a business trip, right? Clerk, how much for all of this?"

"Seven hundred thrty six euros and seventy two cents," replied the clerk instantly. "I'll round it to seven hundred thirty five since you're buying so much."

"Very good, thank you," said James with a nod. The clerk moved off in high spirits, anticipating a very large comission.

"Thank you, James," said Caterina quietly, coming to stop in front of him. Her face was still happy enough, but it was now hardened into a sharper and grimmer expression. "I... knowing how I'll be gone soon, I guess it's a little overwhelming how much you've gotten me."

"Hey now, don't talk like that," said James, endeavoring to cheer up his charge. "Monetary things aren't all that important in the long run. What you do with your time is more important, understand?"

"It's just... I'm really not that good," said Caterina with a sigh, thinking back on the day. "I mean, I did alright in CQC, but you saw my scores for the shooting house and the target range."

"You're alive, aren't you?" asked James bluntly. "If so, keep working to improve. If you are convinced you're not doing well enough, then you should work harder to reach your goal."

"All this though," said Caterina, gesturing at the pile of clothing with a frown. "It makes me happy, but at the same time, I don't want to be undeserving. And I feel undeserving."

"Caterina, you're being grim and pessimistic again," said James with a roll of his eyes and a gentle flick of his cyborg's forehead. "Stop. You know I'm proud of the work you've done so far. If you can't accept yourself as competent enough, then accept that I accept you as competent enough. You're well on your way to being marvelous. Keep going."

Caterina smiled again as the clerk returned with their bill, expression smoothing back into good cheer. Maybe she didn't feel ready, and maybe she wanted to be better, but James said she was good enough. And that, really, was all that she needed.

"All right," she finally said determinedly, looking up at her handler. "I'll do my best."


	3. A Day's Work

/A Studio, in London/

"This is BBC World News Today with me, Zeinab Badawi.

With a new round of income tax reforms come more protests this week in Rome, where the government has come under close scrutiny for its public welfare policy. Right-wing factions from the North of Italy argue that the majority coalition, led by Rinato Pisano, is taking an excessive role in the welfare and livelihood of the people of Italy."

/A Street in Rome/

"Look, it's not that I don't care about the people in the south, okay? It's just that I have my own family to worry about, and I won't stand for the government taking my money to use it for shit like unemployment benefits and medical expenses when I can barely feed my kids as it is."

/A Studio, in London/

"Pisano's reforms come at a time of great economic turmoil in the EU. The Pisano Reforms, as they are known, more heavily tax the wealthy and relieve taxes on lower income brackets, while also providing unemployment and medical benefits to a wide range of qualifying individuals. The Lega Nord, of Northern Italy, has publicly denounced this move, calling it 'the basest form of income redistribution, trampling on the rights of the citizens of Italy to an income unmolested by a greater force.' We now go to-

/*click*/

James turned off his television and reached for his suit jacket. Money was the source of so many problems in the world.

"Off to get more of it," he said with a sardonic grin.

* * *

James hummed thoughtfully as he shut off his car's engine and exited the vehicle, computer bag and laptop in tow. Caterina had made almost alarming progress. The former CIA-operative hadn't expected any more talent than the average newbie field agent, and had indeed resigned himself to several months on the bench waiting for Caterina to get up to speed. But the girl had an almost fanatical devotion to her studies and her training, beyond anything he'd seen in his years as an operative. She was behind, she knew it, and she refused to let that condition stand. When he had first put her on a balance beam, Caterina had barely been able to walk to the other end. Now, only a few weeks after her first evaluation, she was able to backflip down it with easy. It'd only been five weeks, but Caterina had become a well oiled machine of war.

James took a moment to take a sip from the drinking fountain. It wasn't entirely fair, he thought, to call her a machine of war though. Caterina was capable of much more than driving in a straight line and killing all who opposed her. Indeed, she was very explicitly NOT to do so. Caterina was smart, that much was obvious, and over the last month he had taught her how to reason and how to plan, how to think and how to feel. She knew how to coordinate five different audio signals from her team mates and how to move her teammates toward positions that needed reinforcing. She could recognize holes in enemy formations and she could hack into just about any system that the Agency could simulate, which was a lot.

All in all, she was precisely the weapon he needed.

But something wasn't quite right. It was perhaps because James was used to working with five other people to accomplish what he and Caterina could accomplish alone. Or maybe because, despite her usefulness, Caterina was still a girl of thirteen, and he simply wasn't used to help of this level of competency coming from children.

"So what to do, what to do, what to do with Caterina," he said to himself as he continued walking down the hallway toward his office. Maybe they should go camping sometime? That was supposed to be a bonding thing, right?

Oh well. Best leave it as another thought for another day. He had work to do. Arriving at his door, James knocked twice, waited five seconds, knocked once more, and then opened the door. Inside, Caterina nodded to him as she worked, sliding her pistol back into its holster in her messenger bag. Today was a Research Day; the fratello typically spent a most of the day gathering information about current events in legal and less than legal ways.

"Good morning, James," she said, tongue held between her teeth and hair tied up and back as she read down a news article. "I'm just cross referencing this latest development in Paris. Coffee is in the machine over there."

"Excellent, thanks," said James, setting his bag on the floor before taking off his suit jacket and hanging it up on the coat hanger behind the door. "What news from Paris?"

"Oh, just the usual angry Parisians who can't get their delicious pastries, you know how it is," said Caterina nonchalantly as James retrieved his coffee. "Only three injured this time."

"The Paris Police are finally stepping up their game," said James approvingly. "Did you hear about the protests today in Rome?"

"Yeah, I've got an eye on the CCTV in the area," said Caterina, flicking her fingers across the touchpad and switching to a video feed, before turning the screen so James could see. "So far nothing major, but the crowd that's gathering at the Parco Delle Colle Oppio is a lot larger than it usually is. Should we be concerned?"

"Not yet, but stream it onto the big screen, will you?"

"Right, let me get my cable."

"Sure, I'll just start setting my things up for the day."

James glanced around his office briefly as Caterina left for her room to retrieve an HDMI cable, pulling out his own laptop and checking to see what Caterina had already set up. In the corner, on the bed left for handlers who were staying over night doing work, was a large bank of radio and cellular transceivers that the fratello used to monitor the airwaves in the area. It was automatically flipping through the channels and running a search algorithm James had "borrowed" from the CIA, and would alert them if it encountered anything interesting. Caterina had been sitting in the space beside his desk, where the pillow usually was, and her laptop had begun running the screensaver. James nodded to himself; always lock your computer when you leave it. Over the desk and under two halogen bulb lamps hung a 60 inch plasma screen HD television, split between the local news and the BBC. Inside his wardrobe, James saw that Caterina had already powered up the Electronic Warfare Suite if they needed it. The shelf below it held their coffee machine, from which James took a moment to get coffee from, and his spare suits were in the larger space on the left. The room was also lit by a standing lamp in the corner opposite the bed.

With a sigh, James sat down at his desk, laptop in hand, and began scrolling through his news feed.

* * *

Several hours had passed. Caterina's return with the HDMI cable had heralded the streaming of her CCTV connection onto the plasma screen, now split into quadrants and showing two different cameras, scrolling through them at five second intervals.

"Anything interesting?" asked James as he finished with the last report he had for the morning. His news feed was finally empty, it was nearing on lunch time, and they were out of coffee. Definitely a good stopping place.

"Not really," said Caterina, closing her laptop and then rubbing at her eyes tiredly. "Jeez, talk about boring. You'd think there'd be something interesting with all the unrest these days. Can't we get a- a fatality or something?"

"Don't say those things out loud," scolded James half-heartedly. "It's bad karma." Truth be told, he almost wished that someone would die messily just so he could read up on the gory details. But that always jinxed the day, and he would greatly prefer not to have to scramble to Milan for something or another.

Caterina sighed. "I don't think I'll ever understand your superstitions. Feel like lunch?"

"Absolutely," said James, standing and making for the door. "You have the scanners set to notify our phones?"

"Yeah," said Caterina with a nod, scooting off the bed and stretching, knocking out several kinks in her back. "Oof. Let's head out."

"So how're the other cyborgs doing?" asked James as they walked. "I haven't had a chance to catch up with the other handlers lately."

"They're doing alright. Henrietta's been practicing her scared-little-girl routine."

"How's it coming?"

Caterina gave him a skeptical eyebrow. "What do you expect? Half the staff nearly dropped their coffee in shock, the other half were utterly unimpressed. She's not going to be able to really practice without an audience that doesn't know who she is."

"Well, some practice is better than no practice," said James, turning the corner towards the dining hall.

"I suppose. In other news, Rico's managed to be the first cyborg to ace the sharpshooting range. Jean gave her a pat on the head."

James rolled his eyes. "Of course he did. Doesn't the man know that weapons need to be maintained properly? He's going to wear out Rico well before her expiration date if he keeps it up."

"Ah, well what can we do?" asked Caterina with a shrug. "It's not as if we're going to live that long anyway."

"Three years is a lot less than five years, Caterina," said James. "And I dunno about you, but I'd rather not replace my weaponry that frequently."

"I guess that's true, especially if you have to retune the weapon every time," agreed Caterina, tapping at her chin thoughtfully. "I mean, I've got a head for this computer stuff. Imagine if you got a cyborg who couldn't make heads or tails of it!"

James came to halt and shuddered in horror. "Oh God, don't make me think about things like that."

Caterina giggled and thumped her handler gently on the arm to get him moving again. "Hush you, I'll still be here awhile yet. Though it might not be unwise to start grooming a girl for you later..."

"That sounds like it would make me a lot of paperwork," said Ferro, joining the two from the Administrative Offices with a cautious expression. "Do I want to know?"

"Oh, we were just talking about my replacement when I die and what we should do about her," said Caterina with a laugh. "I was just saying that it might be useful to abduct someone and train in her in the necessary skills before converting her."

Ferro blinked, face rapidly shifting from confusion to abject horror.

"Don't worry Ferro, we're not going to kidnap anyone," said James with a reassuring pat on her shoulder. "I know that you've got enough on your plate as it is."

"Why not? It'd really work pretty well, if you think about it," said Caterina, holding open the door to the dining hall for the two adults. "I mean seriously, why not just grab some girls and convert them, then train them in class groups?"

"Because we're not in a nation where this would be received quietly," replied James. "Now in the PRC, that's entirely possible, and it's fortunate for us that they're way behind Italy in technology. But here..."

"I'd think that you'd have a rebellion on your hands," concluded Ferro dryly. "It's a good plan, if you ignore the value of human life."

"Well let's be reasonable, Ferro," said Caterina with her hands spread in a placating gesture. "No one here is saying that humans aren't worth anything. It's just that a random civilian is worth less than a combat cyborg, right?"

"..." Ferro and James exchanged looks.

"What?"

"We're going to have to go over Nietzsche and Kant, aren't we?" asked James with a groan, rubbing at his eyes in anticipation of the oncoming exhaustion. "Ferro, please tell me that Hilshire has a thing for that already."

"He does, actually," said Ferro, with an odd expression. "How'd you guess?"

"It's Hilshire," said James with a shrug as he picked up a plate of pasta. "He's an idealist and it can't have been easy for him to join up with this business. It naturally follows that he'd start looking into philosophy or religion to give himself closure. Caterina?"

"Since he isn't wearing any religious paraphernalia and there's nothing in his car or office to suggest that he's very private about his faith, then it is more likely that he studies philosophy," said Caterina, easily continuing the train of logic while picking up a plate of pasta as well. "Ooo, Carné al Ragu! However, Triela doesn't really do religious references except for in passing or in satire. While many of the principles that Hilshire has taught Triela are, indeed, part of most religious systems, since he lacks the afore mentioned paraphernalia, it seems more likely he's studying philosophy."

"That's... remarkably insightful," said Ferro as the three continued with their plates towards a table. "I see we made the right decision, bringing you two on board."

Caterina grinned. "You can count on us, Ma'am!" she said confidently. "You give us the feeds, we'll give you the most accurate and most rapid real time data analysis you've ever seen!"

"My cyborg's advertising efforts aside, thank you for the compliment, Ferro," said James with a laugh, spearing a bit of pork. "How's work in the administrative offices?"

Ferro paused. "To be honest, we're a little worried," she said pensively, putting down her fork to keep from tapping it against her plate. "The latest protest in Rome..."

"It's larger than it should be?" asked James. "Caterina thought so too. I was expecting it to have dispersed a little by now."

Ferro nodded. "Usually, you get a lot of overly enthusiastic first timers who end up leaving early for a crowd that size. The fact that it's not really dispersed is troubling. You're already monitoring the situation?"

"Yes, though I suspect that Section One is as well."

"Of course they are," said Ferro with a grimace. Section One occasionally had issues with this sort of assignment. It wasn't that they were incompetent, it was that they tended to flag too many possible hits and make a chaotic mess. "Nothing we can do about it, I suppose. Let's just hope that nothing comes about."

* * *

After lunch was more boredom. James and Caterina went to the shooting range briefly to try and avoid going back to the office and it's never ending tedium, but it was a brief diversion at best. Both knew that to ignore the screens was just inviting bad things to happen.

"Urgh," groaned Caterina, slipping off her shoes and flopping onto James' bed. "Back to the long, slow grind then."

"There is a reason I got a giant television," said James, leaning back in his chair and resting his feet on his desk. "And that is because we can plug our video feeds into the TV and have something entertaining going in the background."

"Yeah, well, doesn't mean that it's not boring beyond all possible belief. Besides, there's nothing on this time of day except crappy soap operas."

"Hey now, the protest is supposed to kick off in a few minutes, remember?" asked James, nodding at the still rotating CCTV views. The crowd had grown even larger as the day had progressed, and it was now growing restless. "It looks like it'll be interesting."

Caterina gave the TV an appraising look. "That's not comforting."

"What do you mean? It'll cut the edge off your boredom."

"No, I meant what they're showing," said Caterina, sitting up and pointing. "Look, see how the crowd's moving around? Peaceful protests don't do that."

"Caterina, people hardly can be expected to stand still during a protest."

"Yeah, but they usually drift in and out of clusters of people," countered Caterina. "Remember the protest in Berlin? Everyone was chatting pretty quietly before they went off and did a circuit 'round the city. Not like this."

James turned and studied the CCTV more closely.

"You have a point," he finally concluded, turning up the volume on the BBC's Live Coverage as he did so, keeping the volume low enough so that they wouldn't need to shout to have a conversation. "The people in these feeds are more jittery than we saw in Berlin. Good work."

Caterina smiled briefly before returning to her horizontal position on the bed. "So as I said. It's not comforting. Not in the slightest."

"Cheer up, it probably won't be that bad," said James as the crowd began to move, making its way down to the Via Labicana and west past the Coliseum towards the Capitoline Hill. "The Polizia are usually pretty good at crowd control."

"Italy IS pretty bad at making a stable government," said Caterina with a chuckle. "I imagine a simple history search would give you a lot of examples of civil unrest to work off of."

"Now now, let's not be racist," said James, hiding his grin. "Technically, you're supposed to be Italian yourself, you know."

"Bleh, I know for a fact that my body came from somebody American," said Caterina, rotating in place with her feet to face the opposite direction, hair hanging off the edge of the bed as she talked and watched the television. "I'm under no obligation to consider Italy my homeland."

James blinked. "Wait, doesn't the conditioning-?"

"Not really, I only swear my allegiance to the protection of Italy, not to making it my homeland etc. It's like how you'd never betray the SWA, but it's not like Italy's your home, right?"

James nodded, frowning at a view of several protestors gesticulating violently about something as they walked northward. "Professional discretion on my part, but yes, I understand. Do you know if that's universal across the Corps?"

"I dunno, I'll have to ask. I think Henrietta and Rico might be more attached to Italy than, say, Triela, but I dunno. And since when did you call us The Corps?"

"Since just now," answered James with a grin. "Has a nice ring, don't you think? The Cyborg Corps?"

"Only if you want to risk exploding OpSec every time we use our radios," replied Caterina deadpan, but unable to suppress a small grin. "It sounds nice, but I'd rather not risk the issues that could come with."

"Fine, fine, be a killjoy," said James, faking bad humor, turning to face his cyborg. "Maybe I'll just get a new cyborg who likes all my ideas. What do you say about that?"

"Eh, she'd fail at everything else then," said Caterina confidently. "I'm the only girl who's can learn as fast as you want us to."

"Awfully sure of yourself."

"Of course I am," said Caterina, rolling back on to her stomach and tapping her toes against the wall, a small grin sliding onto her face. "After all, I take classes with the other girls. None of them are quite as far as long as I am."

"You know as well as I do that this is only because I spent a month drilling all the knowledge I could into your head," said James, giving Caterina a cautioning glance. "You're talented, but you're not the greatest cyborg who's ever lived."

Caterina appeared suitably abashed, flushing red in embarrassment. "Er, well, yes, but..."

"Just do your job, Caterina." said James, leaning back in his chair and pivoting to face the plasma screen. "That's all I or anyone else can ask of you."

"Yes sir," said Caterina with muted enthusiasm, turning back to her laptop and quietly working through the audio feeds again before turning her attention to any new reports from the press. Twenty minutes passed in silence as Caterina continued reading through the various news reports, keeping an eye and an ear on the CCTV and the radio feeds. Halfway through an article about the economic situation in the United States, Caterina's well trained sense of wrongness pwinged.

"James, is it normal for protests to walk right past the Presidential Palace?" she asked, tracing the route taken by the leaders of the pack with her finger.

"Well they can, but the Polizia should be blocking it off," said James with a troubled frown. He scooted his chair over and peered down at Caterina's screen. "Why? What do you see?"

"It seems like the protest is going to carry right on by the Presidential Palace and the Polizia aren't doing anything to stop it," said Caterina, tapping at the police cordon. "Look, they've formed a line in front of the Piazza Colonna, but wouldn't it have been safer to divert at Via del Due Macelli and onto Via della Mercede?"

"It would have been yes, but it's not that unheard of," said James. "It may be a gesture of good will to the protestors, and besides, it's not like a riot is going to be able to storm the Palazzo. It's too well protected for that."

"If you say so, but I'm getting a bad feeling," said Caterina unhappily, watching as the front runners began to near the police cordon. "Something's not right here, James."

"Yeah, but-" James paused. With a blink, he turned to look at his cyborg. "I-" There it was again, that odd feeling that they weren't quite working as well as they could. "I think-" Was this it then? Could it be that-?

*BOOM*

Both members of the fratello jumped as the explosion rocked out of their plasma screen. Their attentions whipped back to the CCTV feeds, where smoke and dust obscured all vision.

"Well that's not a good sign," said Caterina, flexing her fingers. "Should I tap into the Palazzo's CCTV?"

"Do it," said James with a tight nod. "I'll try to home in on the radio frequencies in the area to record the reaction."

"Understood. Pulling CCTV... now."

With a flick of her fingers, Caterina exchanged the street-view CCTV with the CCTV in the Palazzo Chigi. Keeping an eye and an ear on his work, James looked up.

"Oh hell."

The Palazzo Chigi's windows were all smashed, their bars charred from the explosion, with glass peppering the inside of the building. Workers inside the ground and second floors could be seen in varying states of disarray, ranging from shocked and frightened to dead or dying, either from the shock wave or from the flying shrapnel. Blood spattered the walls and desks, and, as the reality began to set in, gunfire tore through the aftermath of the suicide bomb.

"Shots fired," noted Caterina, making a note of the time as men with submachine guns advanced into the Palazzo Chigi, security personnel running out of the top floors with concurrent weaponry to begin defending the Prime Minister.

"Time: 15:29."

* * *

"The situation is, frankly, poor," began Lorenzo, less than twenty minutes later. Following the attack, Section Two had immediately been placed on high alert and everyone had grouped into the Large Conference Room. Caterina, clothed in a lightly armored, skin-tight stealth suit with weapons strapped onto her limbs and waist, tapped her fingers against the table as James, wearing standard GIS assault gear, sat next to her in an eerily languid calm. Around the table, the handlers of Section Two also sat with their charges, all in varying states of relaxation. All sharpened to attention as Lorenzo began speaking.

"The City of Rome has been placed under lockdown after a suicide bomb attack on the Palazzo Chigi, followed by an armed assault on the Palazzo by twenty-three men and twelve women. All civilians are being evacuated from the area and have been moved to the grounds of the Villa Borghese, but the protestors dispersed upon the explosion. While most simply melted back into the crowd, a large number took to rioting and looting through the streets, but have been contained to the Piazza del Popolo by the Polizia. While this has prevented the escalation of violence across the city, we are no longer running a nation, as Parliament has been evacuated and the Prime Minister is being held hostage, pending the approval of the secession of Northern Italy from the Republic by federal mandate.

Fortunately, the Prime Minister's bodyguards aren't completely incompetent. While Carabinieri units stationed at the doors were killed in the initial blast, those within the building were able to respond and barricaded the passage to the Prime Minister's living quarters, and have now fortified their location. According to CCTV feeds from the James-Caterina Fratello, the terrorists represent the Armee per l'Indipendenza della Padania and have taken up positions to storm the Prime Minister's quarters, while leaving reserves to guard the front and rear entrances. It is estimated that the Carabinieri will last no more than ten minutes, should the attack commence, and so we must act quickly.

The plan is as follows.

SWA Section Two will advance with GIS Section Three's Alfa, Bravo, and Charlie Teams. Bravo Team will establish a base of fire while Generation One Fratelli and Alfa Team advance as the primary assault force, backed by Charlie Team. After initial contact has been made, Charlie Team will disperse in pairs to locate and destroy any outstanding enemy presence on the premises while Bravo provides security screen. Alfa and Gen-One teams will proceed up the main staircase and attack the terrorists, moving as quickly as possible. The James-Caterina Fratello will coordinate communications between GIS and SWA units as well as provide technological support. Any questions?"

"Do we know how the terrorists are armed?" asked Giuse.

"CCTV shows primarily submachine guns, with a smattering of automatic pistols," answered James.

"What about booby traps?" asked Bernardo. "I'd rather not get my arm blown off."

"We didn't see any, but that may have changed since we last checked," said James. "'Keep your guard up' is all I can say."

"Anything else?" asked Lorenzo. "No? Then head to the GIS Garage. We move out in ten minutes."

The assembled fratelli filed out of the conference room, jogging down the halls to get to the garage early and pack their gear.

"First time seeing some serious action, Caterina?" asked Triela, body armor and tactical vest fastened over her typical suit vest and pants. "I saw you tapping your fingers in the conference room."

"I guess," said Caterina with a shrug. "I've only been on standby with some of your missions, so it's the first time I'll know for sure I'll be participating. The conditioning helps a lot with the jitters though."

Triela nodded. "Get some experience under your belt and things will start to get a little boring even."

"Heh, well I guess I can only hope for more of the same then?" asked Caterina. "Best not tempt fate, right?"

"Eh, I guess, but truth be told, I could use-mmph?"

"Really though, don't tempt fate," said Caterina with a serious expression. "Last time James did that, he got fired from the CIA. Last time I did that, this happened"

"Really? You're superstitious?" asked Triela, incredulous. "Caterina, this is pretty serious, but it has all the hallmarks of a classic assault mission. What could possibly go wrong?"

Caterina facepalmed. "Dammit Triela, you had to say that out loud." She turned away and moved towards Henrietta.

"What? Oh come on!"

"Nope, not talking to you and prompting more jinxing of this mission," said Caterina over her shoulder. "Just watch, I'll bet that one of us gets shot."

"You're too superstitious!" Triela called back, before continuing on beside an amused Hilshire, grumbling. "Stupid Gen-twos..."

"There's only one Gen-two, Triela," said Hilshire, tactfully hiding his grin.

"Same difference."

* * *

"So Henrietta, what's up?" asked Caterina, approaching Henrietta and Angelica. "You guys have done this sort of thing before, right?"

"Yes, it's pretty routine by now," said Henrietta with a smile, smoothing back her hair with a gloved hand, having exchanged her typical ensemble for a long sleeved, black shirt and khaki battle trousers that matched her body armor and harness. "Although, Angelica, when was your last deployment?"

"I think a few months ago, before I had to go in for recalibration," said Angelica, dressed similarly to Henrietta, ticking off the months on her fingers. "Yes, I think it was five months?"

"How're you calibrations, by the way?" asked Caterina as the group rounded the corner. Henrietta reslung her P90 as it slipped briefly loose.

"Ah, my results are back in their previous percentiles, thanks to Marco's training," said Angelica with a happy smile. "He's been making sure to help me lots on the firing range."

"That's good," said Caterina. "I'm happy for you. I guess I'm back to last place on the scoreboard, huh?"

"I.. sup-pose," said Henrietta slowly, selecting her words carefully. "But keep in mind that we're all grouped close together, so..."

"Ah, don't worry Henrietta," said Caterina, nudging the smaller girl playfully. "I'm not so insecure in my shooting. I can do more work with my laptop anyway."

"Oh, er, sorry then," said Henrietta with a small blush. "I didn't mean-"

"What did I just say about worrying?" asked Caterina, poking Henrietta with a finger. "Besides, we should be talking about the mission, getting our heads in the game and all that, right? Any thoughts?"

Henrietta scratched her head awkwardly. "Giuse is better at that sort of thing than I am, but the plan sounds like it will work."

"Yes, although Marco always says that 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy'," said Angelica. "Maybe we should have more plans?"

"More plans is always good," agreed Caterina, popping upwards to look for the other Gen-ones. "Where's Rico? Triela was just over there, and Silvia I think is over there..."

As Caterina prepared to pop upwards again, Henrietta snagged her belt and gave her a displeased look. "Don't jump around so much. I'm sure we can think up a decent plan on our own."

"But if the others don't know-"

"Caterina, you're not going to be able to have every team member be up to date on every plan you make," said James, patting his cyborg on the head. All three girls stiffened in shock and nearly missed a step. "It's good that you're taking the initiative and coming up with your own contingencies, but maybe you should wait for a closer look at the blueprints?"

"Nngh, stop doing that!" groaned Caterina, leaning into her handler as she recovered from the shock. "I don't have the conditioning to handle it!"

"To be fair, Angelica and Henrietta were startled too," said James, giving her a noogie. "Weren't you girls?"

Both very surreptitiously placed their weapons back into their holsters. "Yes, exactly," said Henrietta with a smile. "But Caterina is right, our threat response is a little different."

"Well, alright then, I'll try to give you a few seconds warning next time," said James, rubbing Caterina's head and nudging her back upright. "Anyway, like I said, you should probably wait for the blueprints before really making any detailed plans."

"Oh, er, right," said Caterina, turning red. "I guess that would make more sense, wouldn't it?"

"Eh, you're doing well so far," said James. "I need to talk to Jean some more. See you at the garage."

"Bye!" called Caterina, before turning back and rubbing at her face embarrassedly. "Eurgh. I'm all out of sorts."

Angelica gave Caterina a brief commiserating hug. "You'll be alright, it's just nerves."

Henrietta nodded. "I was a lot worse my first real mission..."

"Really? What happened?"

"I'd... rather not say," said Henrietta unhappily, suddenly turning sad.

Caterina frowned. "Oh. I'm sorry for bringing it up."

"Don't be, I brought it up first," said Henrietta, slowly brightening. "A-anyway. Will you be in the van again?"

"Well, since we're deploying with GIS Section Three, I'll probably be in a 4x4 Puma," said Caterina, thinking through the Carabinieri's tactical vehicle roster. "But same principle, I guess."

"What's it like being on standby all the time?" asked Angelica. "I was just off duty when I was being recalibrated."

"I... I guess it's like being the string of a bow?" said Caterina, searching for an appropriate analogy. "It's... it's really tense? But, I dunno, like it's also a bit of a relief, because I know you guys will more than likely be able to handle it, so I'm not worried."

Angelica and Henrietta exchanged a confused look.

"I guess I'm bad at explaining it," said Caterina sheepishly, the trio making its way into the garage. "In the end, I guess the most descriptive adjective is 'dull'."

"It must be, sitting and waiting so often," said Angelica with a nod. "I hope it will be more interesting for you today."

Caterina grimaced. Not again. "Right, thanks. I, uh, gotta go and meet James at the command vehicle, so I'll see you guys later?"

"See you later!" Henrietta and Angelica said, before Caterina jogged off find her handler.

Caterina hurried through the bustle of men loading ammunition and equipment into the Puma armored fighting vehicles, searching for James. She spotted him talking to Jean and the GIS Commander, Jean wearing an outfit remarkably similar to Henrietta's, though it was probably the other way around, while the GIS Commander equipped identically to James. Pausing briefly to tie her hair back and up, Caterina jogged towards them.

"...so I'll have to transmit that data manually then," said James, brow furrowed, "Jean, do you want me to have that go to all teams?"

"Of course, everyone needs to know where the enemy is," said Jean calmly. "Make sure that you give us updates every few minutes. I don't want us caught off guard."

"Right, movement only then?"

"Yes, and any changes in disposition. If you can, time it for lulls in the battle."

"Alright. Major Salles, you'll want the same?"

"Yes, absolutely," said the Major, nodding as he did so. He glanced behind James. "Is this your cyborg then?"

"My name's Caterina, Sir," said Caterina, nodding briefly to the Major, then to Jean. "Commander Jean."

"Your equipment is over there," said Jean, pointing at a bundle lying off to the side. "You should move it while I discuss things with your handler."

"Yes sir," said Caterina, taken briefly aback but immediately moving as instructed. "Any particular place I should put it?"

"We still need to load some equipment from Charlie Team," said Major Salles. "Try not to take up too much space."

"Yes sir."

"Anyway, is the electronics warfare package ready, as we discussed?" Jean asked of James.

"Yeah, and we'll be able to live-feed the CCTV as well," said James with a nod. "Do you know how much..."

The conversation continued along similar lines, Caterina tuning out completely as she let James handle the proceedings. The bags were nothing heavy and contained the E-Warfare hardware they'd need, as well as their laptops, James' in his computer bag and Caterina's in her messenger bag. She finished quickly, and spent the remaining time double-checking her equipment. Her burglary kit, which consisted of a variety of lockpicks, RFID chips, and flash drives, was sorted, her souped-up iPhone was charged and loaded with the appropriate software, her gun was loaded and safed, her knife was sharpened and in its sheath in the small of her back, and everything was secured upon her person within easy reach.

"Ready to go?" asked James, joining her in front of the Puma.

"Yup, just waiting for the order."

"Well, get in then."

The fratello climbed into their Puma, taking the last two seats beside two troopers from Charlie Team and Major Salles, nodding as they did so to the balaclavaed and armored soldiers, who nodded back in recognition of the fratello's abilities. Major Salles picked up the radio.

"This is Section Lead," he began.

All around, the rumble of diesel engines filled the garage as powerful headlamps switched on, bathing the walls in bright white light. All gear was loaded and all teams were in their vehicles. The road to the Palazzo Chigi wasn't very long, but terrorist tempers were much shorter.

"All units..."

It was time to make someone's day a lot messier.

"...move out."


	4. An Evening of Light and Music

Twas a night in the summer and all throughout Rome,  
not a person was stirring, yea' all had gone home.

Violence and chaos now gripped the still gloom,  
the time had now come to let young flowers bloom.

The quelling of anger was this herb's fair purpose,  
'twas bitter medicine that heals via magnum corpus.

Still your hearts young children for all will be well,  
sleep and no longer on these foul matters dwell.

* * *

"ETA at Palazzo Chigi is seven minutes," reported the driver. His was the first voice to have spoken since the convoy entered Rome's city limits.

Apart from the tense tapping of fingers on metal surfaces or the slight crackle of a cigarette burning its way down to the filter, all was silent in contemplation of what lay ahead. The deployment of the GIS and the SWA was a rushed affair and everyone knew it. While Director Lorenzo's plan was sound, it had to be admitted that such a plan was generic at best and prone to implosion at worst. Nobody really had any idea what they were getting into.

Caterina's examination of the blueprints during the drive had revealed that there were very few avenues of approach, which would be advantageous for defending troops if employed correctly. Based on the CCTV footage, Marshal Demoniti, the man in charge of Palazzo Security, was doing an excellent job. The rooms he and his men were holding had walls made of stone and branched off of a central hallway. Perfect for catching the enemy in a crossfire.

"Signor Spettro," said Major Salles, stepping from the command center into the main cabin. "How goes your setup?"

"It goes well, Major," replied James, looking up from his work integrating the electronic warfare suite into the Puma's broadcasting equipment. "I'm ready to begin signal management."

"Good. Contact Palazzo Security, we'll need to coordinate movements."

"Understood, Major," said James with a nod, flipping a switch before tapping Caterina on the shoulder, who barely glanced up from her computer screen. "Caterina, patch the Major to Marshall Demoniti and get him a copy of those blueprints."

"Right," said Caterina, flicking to a separate desktop and isolating the radio signal, before patching it into the Puma's radio transceiver. There was a burst of static before the line stabilized and the status reports of Carabinieri trying desperately to hold off the enemy began to transmit.

Major Salles picked up the mic. "Palazzo Security, this is GIS Section Three, do you read me?"

There were a few whoops of joy at this announcement. "Meno male!" said a man breathlessly, his voice strained from shouting over gunfire. "This is Marshall Demoniti, and it sure is good to hear you, GIS."

Major Salles nodded to himself seriously. "Glad to see you're still up and kicking Marshall. I am Major S and in charge of this relief operation. Give me a sitrep."

"Yes sir," began Demoniti, clearing his throat and shifting to a more deferential tone. "Do you have blue prints?"

"I do," replied Salles as Caterina handed him her laptop and began to fiddle with her headphones.

"Good. I've pulled my men back from the Prime Minister's Office to the Employee Offices. As you can see, the architecture creates a defensible chokepoint, but we never had much ammo to begin with. We-" The blat of a machine pistol sending a stream of bullets down range briefly interrupted the Marshall. The sharp bark of a pistol answered back. "-we're not entirely sure why we haven't been rushed yet, but it's possible that the Padania are being cautious and know that we have the stronger position."

"They have some sense in their heads then. How unfortunate. Where are you exactly in the Offices?"

"We've been pushed back to the third row. I have the Prime Minister further back and around the corner, and my men upstairs are holding their position to protect the Minister's family."

"Good. Be ready to withdraw your men. GIS will be attacking full force and we don't want friendlies in the cross fire."

"Understood, thanks for the heads up."

Salles sighed as he set down the mic and handed Caterina's laptop back to her. "Wonderful. They keep getting smarter, though it doesn't sound like they're that much smarter than usual."

"We'd be out of a job if they didn't improve," replied Caterina with a forced grin, trying to make the situation slightly less tense.

"This is true, though ideally we would never be necessary," sighed Major Salles, appreciating the attempt but unmoved. "Ah well. Ready yourself, child, we're nearly there."

"ETA 5 minutes!" called the driver.

"Caterina, you should boot up your triangulating software," said James, taking his seat and pulling up a copy of the blueprints on his own laptop. "I'm thinking that we'll need it."  
"Right," said Caterina with a nod, slotting open the USB port behind her right ear as she double clicked on the program. There was a brief loading screen before the app, called SigmaFind, loaded. Caterina popped a USB cord into her earport and connected it to the computer.

*beep*

"Beginning triangulation ," announced Caterina, gray blips appearing rapidly on her map as every signal, radio, cellular, and otherwise, within range of her implants was located. Moments after, a line of dots, moving down their street at eighty kilometers per hour, flickered green, SigmaFind having used Caterina's implants to realize that the convoy were all friendly units. Caterina double checked, in case the program missed anybody, and turned a few gray blips to green manually.

"Sir, all friendlies have been identified via triangulation," reported Caterina, her mapview now slaved to the movement of their Puma.

"Good, do a coms check with the others," said James, glancing at the time. "We're almost at the Palazzo."

"Right." Caterina pulled out her headphones and dropped them over her ears, tightening them to the right fit and popping out the baffles so that she could still hear what was happening in the Puma. They automatically connected to her laptop and into TeamCom as she sat down.

"Hello all call signs, this is battlefield controller Scotch, radio check, over," said Caterina, keying her mike.

"Bravo Leader, we read you loud and clear, over."

"Charlie Leader, ok, over."

"Alfa Leader, lima charlie, over."

"Sierra Leader, loud and clear, over," said Jean. "Scotch Actual, status of the E-Warfare Suite?"

"This is Scotch Actual, all systems are go," answered James, using a microphone wired into the Puma. He glanced over the electronics a second time. "Radio and cellular jamming is in effect for all hostile units, triangulation is online, and we are ready to hack anything we need to."

"ETA two minutes!"

"Sierra to Scotch, good to hear, ready to apply on my command."

"Yes sir."

"Alert, contact ten unknowns, front of the Palazzo," reported Caterina as the Palazzo Chigi came into view on her screen. "Five in the back..." she scrolled through the altitude settings, shifting the height at which her implants were scanning "...ten on the second floor opposite eight friendlies, and eight on the fourth floor opposite eleven friendlies, over."

Major Salles keyed his mic. "All units, ready for action. ETA is one minute fifteen seconds... now. We will establish a base of fire from the vehicles before assaulting the front doors. Sierra teams will spearhead, followed by Alfa. Move hard and fast while Charlie clears the lower floor. Keep them off balance."

"Alfa Team, roger wilco."

"Bravo Team, roger wilco."

"Charlie Team, roger wilco."

"Sierra Team, ten four."

Caterina looked at her watch, strapping her laptop into a hardware tray in the Puma's command center. Across the way, James did the same. Thirty seconds.

"You nervous kid?" asked the nearest GIS trooper.

"No," answered Caterina, sitting down and buckling her seat. An eerie sense of calm had fallen over her, with the slightest of electric tingles at the back of her skull. "Are you?"

"Hell, everyone's nervous, kid," said the trooper, pulling his balaclava onto his face with an ironic grin. "After all, if one of us get's hit..."

"Game over, right? Ten seconds, sir."

"Right," The trooper looked over his gun once more before grabbing a handlebar. "You'll want to hang on kid."

Caterina had just enough time to blink before the driver braked hard, coming to a stop quickly as the mil-spec brakes and tires tore momentum from the multi-ton vehicle. The GIS trooper barely reacted, simply holding the handlebar more tightly. Caterina squeaked and nearly fell over, the intense braking action nearly knocking her into the bulkhead as SMG fire immediately began pinging off the Puma's armor. Behind it, the rest of the convoy pulled to a stop or ran around the Column of Marcus Aurelius to block off the other side of the Piazza Colonna.

"Suppressing fire on the door!" shouted Bravo Leader as he dismounted, the sound of diesel engines immediately augmented by the sound of repeated assault rifle fire. "Bravo 3 and 2, move right and cover the attack from the center!"

"Roger wilco!"

The thunderous roar of assault rifles echoed throughout the plaza as the electronic warfare suite went to work, two commands from Caterina immediately jamming all cell phones and radios that weren't green in SigmaFind. Her immediate task completed, she and James took to monitoring the situation with Major Salles, watching in silence as a series of green blips moved to stack up on the side of the Palazzo.

* * *

"Flash grenades," ordered Jean, pulling up five feet distant to the door. The fratelli were hunkered down against the wall, backed by Alfa and Charlie. "Triela and Silvia first, then Beatrice and Henrietta. Rico, Angelica, and Chiara will be followed by handlers. Cut through the enemy and make your way to the stairs, let Charlie take care of any strays. Go."

Triela and Silvia nodded, pulling out a flash grenade each and preparing to run.

"Bravo, this is Sierra, we are preparing to breach," Triela called out. "Hold fire on my mark." She turned to look at Silvia. "Ready?"

"Yeah, let's do this," she answered, pulling the pin on her grenade but holding onto the handle firmly.

"Right. Bravo team, hold fire in three, two, one, mark."

The hail of bullets abruptly went silent. Before the Padania could realize something was wrong, Silvia ricocheted her grenade off the top of the door frame and down to the front of the room. This was followed by Triela's throw deeper into the entrance hall, accomplished milliseconds afterwards. Both covered their ears as the grenades went off, one after the other. Before the dust of the explosions settled, the girls were off, darting through the doorway.

Triela led the charge, sweeping right as she entered and firing into a terrorist standing directly beside the door. Racking her shotgun as she moved, Triela stepped past old stone columns, her boots clicking on the stone floor of the courtyard and entry way. Rotating to her left as she reached the end of the entry way, Triela nearly ran into a second terrorist. She pulled the trigger on instinct, firing into the man's abdomen. Before he'd hit the ground, a third terrorist came into view, reeling back from the grenades. With no time to rack the slide, Triela simply stepped forward and flicked out the butt of her shotgun. There was a crunch as the back of the terrorist's skull caved in, a sound that was oddly audible over the noise of suppressed submachine guns from Henrietta and Beatrice.

Silvia had followed Triela and but swept left, firing as she did so and sending pellets ripping through a terrorist's neck and upper chest. As she advanced forward, two Padania at medium range stumbled behind cover, trying to gather their wits. An easy shot for the veteran cyborg, Silvia simply aimed and pulled, firing thrice into the combined body mass. Shots one and two perforated major organs; the third shot was for luck. As the last gunshot faded, she heard the crunch of bones being destroyed and glanced over to witness Triela's melee kill. Obscured partly by Henrietta's hair, Silvia wasn't able to see everything, but the way the man went utterly boneless implied the caving in of the back of his head.

"Clear! And good kill, Triela!" called Silvia, taking cover to reload.

Henrietta was the third cyborg to move into the room. With Triela and Silvia covering the flanks, Henrietta concentrated on the area immediately in front of her. One on the left, three on the right, all of them trying to hide behind the pillars at the end of the courtyard. The one on the left was out of cover and an easy kill, but that was Beatrice's zone of fire. Instead, Henrietta darted across the courtyard, zipping to the right as Beatrice came in and perforated the exposed target with ease. Henrietta fired as she ran, sending a hailstorm of lead in the general direction of the enemy. With fifty bullets to work with, she had more than enough ammunition to double tap her targets as she came around the end with all her ducks lined up in a row. Easy.

Beatrice's experience was less interesting. She only got to kill one terrorist. Oh well.

"Clear!" called out Henrietta and Beatrice.

"Man, you didn't leave us any," sighed Chiara, as she and Angelica came in, moving directly to the stairs and moving up them, covered by Rico. Everyone followed as Charlie Team spread out and began to clear the back and sides of the Palazzo's ground floor.

"Scotch to Sierra, be advised that bogies are withdrawing from the rooms about the stairway," reported Caterina. "Rooms will be empty. Expect ambush tactics from the offices surrounding the area, over."

"Sierra to Scotch Actual, status of the Fourth Floor?" asked Jean as the cyborgs reached the next landing. Using hand signals, he directed Rico and Angelica to cover the stairwell leading up to the next floor.

"Ah, Scotch Actual to Sierra, triangulation shows that bogies are still holding their position," replied James. "CCTV indicates that they're having a conference of some kind. Recommend securing the second floor and leaving them to Alfa Team."

"Thank you for the advice," said Jean with an annoyed scowl. "Marco, Matteo, take your cyborgs and wait here to move with Alfa Team. I want the upstairs secured as quickly as possible. Everyone else, split into two squads and attack from opposite sides of the offices. Go."

* * *

"I don't think he likes you giving advice," remarked Caterina in the van, holding a hand over her microphone.

"Yeah, well, Jean will be Jean," replied James, flicking through the CCTV to watch as Rico, Beatrice, and Silvia stacked up with their handlers on the door facing the stairs while Triela and Henrietta went to the right hand door with their handlers. Angelica and Chiara took point up the stairs, followed by their handlers and Alfa Team. "How are we doing? Anything new?"

"No, the board is clear," said Caterina, SigmaFind reporting no incoming signals. Not that she was expecting any, but it was better to be safe than to be sorry. "Enemy coms are still down and they're running essentially independently. We'll smoke them."

"Good," said James, as Jean gave the go ahead for everyone to move.

* * *

The fratelli opened their doors quietly, stepping lightly as they advanced through the empty, well furnished rooms. Each was decorated with works of art dating back to the 1600s and 1700s but had modern, color coordinated carpets that appeared to have been installed with the Prime Minister. They were devoid of human life, and sharp cyborg eyes detected no booby traps, and with luck the majority of the art would go unblemished. So far, everything was going to plan on the second floor.

"Scotch, this is Marco," called the handler, having called a halt at the third floor landing. "What can you tell us about the upstairs?"

"Scotch to Marco, the only relevant door will on your right," answered Caterina as James monitored the second floor action closely, Jean stacking up the fratelli and preparing to flash and clear the hallways with Rico leading the way. "The only approach to the quarters is the staircase on the fourth floor, and Carabinieri are holding the area immediately atop it. The enemy is holed up in the foyer, drawing room, and cloakroom, so you'll need to move fairly quickly."

"Understood, thanks for the update," answered Marco. "Matteo, flash grenades, then you and Chiara go first while we move in behind?"

"Sounds good to me," said Matteo. "Let's go."

"Right." Marco pulled out a flash grenade, opened the door, and threw the grenade into the foyer. It landed right by the foot of a terrorist, taking cover behind a small decorative column of stone. There was a moment of disbelief before the grenade went off, followed by the sound of Chiara's, then Angelica's, assault rifle barking its displeasure at the infringement of the Prime Minister's home, Padania falling and staining the rich carpeting with blood. Matteo moved next, double checking his cyborg's sector. Finding no living enemies before him, he turned right to cover the door to the cloak room, Chiara already beside it and ready to attack. Behind him, Marco entered and swiveled left to face the drawing room, weapon up and ready. He was expecting some idiot to open the door with his weapon down, presenting an easy target. He was not expecting the door to be kicked open fast enough to smack Angelica in the face, sending her reeling just long enough for the muzzle of a MAC-10 to be poked out and its trigger to be pulled.

"Handler down!"

* * *

"Shit," said James in alarm as he switched camera views in time to witness Matteo fall to gunfire before Marco was able to kill the enemy. The situation quickly disintegrated as Alfa Team, Marco, and Angelica unleashed a nearly excessive amount of covering fire to allow Chiara to drag her handler back to the stairwell.

More shouts, garbled from the sheer volume of gunfire in the background, came over the radio. Caterina flicked through the cameras as quickly as she could, soon finding Triela unconscious and bleeding in the hallway as Giuseppe and Henrietta reacted quickly, sending back a spray of bullets that gave Hilshire enough time to pull Triela back through the doorway.

"Dammit, everyone get to cover!" shouted Jean. His door had opened to the Prime Minister's secretary's desk, along with the body of a felled Carabiniere. Bullets zipped past Rico as she dived forward and over the desk rather than retreating, landing behind it with a thud.

"The fire's coming from the intersection!" Pierre called out, ducking back into the room as bullets broke bits of stone off the wall by his face. Cautiously, he leaned out to get a look, rifle down to reduce his profile. "Merde, it looks like they've congregated there!"

"Well keep firing then, Frenchie!" replied Bernardo, sending long bursts of rifle fire down the hall. "Beatrice, back up Rico and keep them suppressed!"

"Yes sir!" Beatrice shouted back, the din of weapons fire increasing in volume as Pierre and Jean joined Bernardo in suppressing the intersection. With a running leap, she bounded forward and vaulted over the desk to take cover with Rico. Silvia soon joined them.

"Well, this is interesting," Silvia quipped, reloading her rifle. "Having fun, Beatrice?"

"I am unsure," replied the monotonic cyborg, leaning out and releasing a burst. "I suppose this could be considered exciting."

* * *

"Alfa Team, what's the status of the fratello upstairs?" asked Caterina tensely.

"The handler's down from multiple impacts to the back and side," replied Alfa 3's squad leader, shouting over the storm of gunfire that was being directed downrange. "His armor stopped the rounds, but the concussive force was pretty substantial. He's lucky he didn't get hit in the head We're currently holding our position to stabilize him before we make a push forward."

Caterina bit her lip but crushed the worry under professionalism. "Right, do you need reinforcements?"

"Negative, route reinforcements to someone who needs it more badly."

"Undestood."

"Send Charlie Team to support Sierra on the second floor," ordered Salles, "and scramble a medical team."

"Yes sir," replied Caterina, pulling up a list of medics on standby. "Scotch to Charlie Team, make your way to support Sierra Team on the second floor. Medical 1-1 and 1-2, priority one emergency on fourth and second floors."

"Charlie Leader to Scotch," came the answer, the GIS on the ground floor having finished their sweep of the floor, "we're on our way to assist."

"This is Medical 1-1, we'll take the fourth floor, over."

"Medical 1-2, we've got the second floor."

"Understood," said Caterina, noting their status in SigmaFind. "Thanks for the assist guys, Scotch out."

* * *

Meanwhile, James was talking to the second floor.

"Scotch Actual to Giuseppe, what's the status of Triela?" he asked.

"Her armor stopped the rounds and prevented any real damage," replied Giuseppe as Henrietta popped out to return fire. Hilshire hovered nearby anxiously, occasionally firing but more concerned for Triela. "Looks like she was knocked out by an unlucky bullet to the cranium."

"Understood. Medics are on their way, sit tight."

"Oh, no worries there," replied Giuseppe with a sigh. "We'll be here. Just get medical up here quickly. Giuseppe out."

James leaned back as the radio chatter lulled, looking at his screen unhappily. The situation wasn't completely FUBAR yet, after all, a completely clean mission in the circumstances was impossible, but this certainly wasn't good. How had Section One, Section Two, AND Public Security missed this? Surely one of them had to have picked up something of a trace...

A radio call broke him out of his reverie. "Charlie Leader to Section Leader, do we have clearance to use frag grenades?"

Major Salles only needed a moment to consider. The situation was no longer something he could control with just flash bangs. The Padania needed to be shut down, and the blueprints showed that it would be very easy for them to pull back and reinforce in a better position if they weren't taken out immediately. It seemed that the price for peace in the present was the loss of some history. "Affirmative. All units are cleared to use frags. Carabinieri, do you copy?"

"Carabinieri to GIS, we roger your transmission," answered Marshall Demoniti, Caterina's patching together of the radios allowing for radio calls to cross both ways. "We'll pull back a bit to give you guys room, over."

* * *

"Rico, shift fire to the right!" shouted Jean, SMG fire nearly overpowering his voice. "Suppress that corner! Silvia, Beatrice, move up!"

Under the cover of Rico's rifle and the rifle bursts from their handlers, Silvia and Beatrice darted from office to office, checking to make sure each room was clear before taking cover behind the wall. Or tried to, at least, before another wall of gunfire forced them to dive back, having only made it two offices forward. Less than fifteen meters.

"It's no good sir!" Silvia shouted as Beatrice concentrated on shooting. "We'll get shot to pieces!"

"Damn it all!" growled Jean. The entire operation was falling apart around them. It had only because the offices were walled with stone that the Padania hadn't just rushed the Carabinieri, and now the same architecture was working against them. They were stalled.

And then backup arrived. "Charlie to Sierra, we have orders to back you up," called out Charlie Leader as the GIS ran up the stairs. "Give me priorities."

"Sierra to Charlie, we need suppressing fire and explosives in the the southern offices," replied Jean, aiming around the corner to send a burst of assault rifle fire down the hallway. "Padania control the main intersection, we need-"

"Alert, Sierra Leader, Padania moving to flank you from the back!" shouted Caterina, breaking into the transmission. "Count four- five- seven bogies en route through the Prime Minister's office!"

"Correction, Charlie, get your men up here and we'll work out a plan later," said Jean with a snarl. "Silvia! Beatrice! Bernardo! Keep them bottled up at this end! Rico, Pierre, with me!" The two handlers and one cyborg ran back and around the corner while covered by their colleagues, stacking against the wall of a corner office with Rico in front and the handlers behind. "Rico, aimed shots. Go for the kill. Pierre, you and me provide covering fire while she works."

Rico nodded. "Yes sir. Ready on your mark."

"...Mark." Jean pointed his rifle down range and pulled the trigger, sending bursts of unaimed fire whizzing through the air. Behind him, Pierre dropped to one knee to send slightly more controlled bursts. Rico simply stepped out, rifle up to her shoulder, and calmly sighted downrange, her senses sharpening exponentially as her adrenaline levels spiked.

There were three targets in the open, all falling back due to the fire from the handlers. Four targets were behind cover, with one returning fire. Four shots, four kills.

*bangbangbangbang*

"Four targets down sir," reported Rico, keeping her eye to the sights as all four of the seven Padania, including the one who had been leaning out to fire, fell to the ground missing critical parts of their upper respiratory track.

"Charlie, situation is slightly more contained," said Jean. "I need two squads to push them back from here and the hallway and at least one to hold the flank. You have medical personnel?"

"Yes."

"Good. We have one Sierra member wounded on our right flank, send the medics there. Silvia, Beatrice, Bernardo, status update."

"Better sir, now that we have backup," replied Silvia. "Signore Bernardo is running low on ammo though."

"That explains the silence," said Jean. "Charlie, one of our team members is also going to need to top off his ammo."

"Roger wilco, Sierra Leader, Charlie 1 and 2 on your way while Charlie 3 and 4 will hold the flank. Charlie Leader to Scotch, what intel can you give us?"

"Scotch to Charlie, the hallway you will be reinforcing has two entrances from the stairwell," answered Caterina. "Head north into the Hall of Galleys then swing around. You'll be able to fire directly down the hallway from there."

"Roger that Scotch," replied Charlie Leader. "You heard the girl, boys! Move north and swing around!"

* * *

"Medical 1-1 to Scotch, update on your handler."

James perked up and took the call. "Scotch Actual to Medical 1-1, what news do you have for us, over?"

"Well the good news is that he hasn't taken any hits to vital areas," said the medic, his team moving Matteo's still form, accompanied by his tearful cyborg, away from the fighting. "The girl's reaction time is excellent and she was able to absorb most of the rounds. The bad news is that he still has two hits to the upper thigh. We got clotting agent in soon enough that you can probably operate and save his legs, but he's not going to be operational for several months, at least."

"Understood, thank you Medic 1-1. How's the girl, is she doing alright?"

"Well the rumors we've heard about you guys are accurate at least, because she's got nothing but some small puncture wounds that we clotted up with a pinch of agent. Mentally though..." The medic trailed off into a pointed silence.

James grimaced. He got the picture well enough. "Right. Thanks again for your help Medic 1-1."

"Not a problem Scotch Actual, over and out."

"Sounds like Chiara is in a bit of a state," remarked Caterina in a strained voice. She kept a close eye on Alfa Team's blips as they moved to clear the drawing room, a clean toss from Angelica having wiped out anybody hiding in the coat room.

"We'll have to deal with that later," said James with a sigh. "For now, stay on the ball."

"Yes sir."

* * *

Triela's head was a giant mass of pain.

"Ugh, what happened?" she asked, groggy and disoriented, the world a black field of emptiness.

"You got pinged in the head by a bullet," said Hilshire from somewhere to her left. "We're lucky it was a low caliber."

"Where are you?" asked Triela, reaching out into the blackness for her handler and unable to find him.

"I'm here," he said. Triela felt a gloved hand enclose her own. "Can you open your eyes?"

So that was why it was so black. It took a moment for Triela to manage it, and only enough to see a sliver of the world about her. This was probably a bad sign, but Triela wasn't able to work up much more than a distant sense of unease.

"Medic, she's conscious," said Hilshire. Triela turned her head to look up at him, his face pale with concern as he crouched at her side.

"Excellent, let me take a look," said another voice, a gloved hand guiding her face away from Hilshire. Triela looked reluctantly over, only to receive a penlight to the eye.

"Agh!" she cried, reeling back from the sharp, stabbing light, her entire body spasming from the shock.

"Well that's not good," said the medic grimly. "Can you try to stand up?"

"Yes sir," groaned Triela, rolling onto her stomach and trying to push off of the floor. Immediately the world span, and she was violently sick onto the carpet before nearly collapsing into her own vomit. A quick hand from Hilshire kept her from falling in face first, but she wasn't able to completely avoid it. "Damn it, there goes this shirt."

"What's the diagnosis?" asked Hilshire, laying a commiserating hand on his cyborg's shoulder.

"Concussion, and a very nasty one at that," replied the field medic with certainty. Triela's vision had cleared somewhat, and she could now see that he was wearing combat blacks and had a red medical cross for a shoulder patch. "She's out for this mission." He turned to look behind him. "Come on gentlemen, let's get Leprotto downstairs."

Triela groaned, though even she wasn't sure if it was from the pain or from disappointment in having to drop out of the mission. "Sorry, Hilshire. Guess I messed up again."

"No, this wasn't your fault," replied Hilshire soothingly, smoothing back Triela's hair with his unoccupied hand. "It's a good thing you went first, that bullet would have splattered my brains across the wall."

Triela managed a weak laugh at that as a stretcher was placed beside her. "You'd be a lot less handsome without your head, Hilshire."

"Exactly, so thank you," the German replied, privately increasingly worried. Triela wasn't one to make quips about his appearance; her injury had to be extremely severe.

"We need to move her now, sir," said a medic, placing a hand on his shoulder. Hilshire only nodded, stepping back to give the medics room.

"Medical 1-2 to Scotch, we've picked up the wounded Sierra member," radioed the medic who had diagnosed Triela. "She's got a very serious concussion and will need to be out of action for awhile."

"Understand, thanks for the help," answered James. "Hilshire, are you going to keep fighting?"

"No, I'll keep Triela company," said Hilshire, following behind the medical team as they carried the semi-delirious cyborg down the steps. "With the amount of backup we have, the others have it handled. I heard that Matteo went down. Is he alright?"

"Yeah, this mission is apparently made of luck," answered James. "He's already down here with Chiara. Most of the rounds were absorbed by his armor, his rear end, or his cyborg. He's only got two hits that shattered his femur and pelvis."

"Well, being an SWA handler does have certain perks," said Hilshire with a relieved smile. "A hip replacement is nothing the docs can't handle. See you in a bit."

"See you soon, Hilshire."

* * *

By now, the action was basically concluded. With the arrival of Charlie Team, and, more importantly, their fragmentation grenades, the rapid extermination of the Padania had been achieved quickly. A single toss had ended the stalemate between Rico, Jean, Pierre, and the flanking attack, and the assault had been resolved through a three way pincer movement that utterly annihilated the remaining enemies on the second floor. On the fourth, the battle concluded even more swiftly, with Alfa Team handily destroying the remaining groups in the drawing room. A thorough examination of the building had yielded no more enemies, and Beatrice detected no explosives other than the grenades of the GIS. All Padania were dead, and with the exception of the initial explosion in the Piazza Colonna, all of the Carabinieri were alive, and only two SWA members were injured. It had been close at times, but the mission had ended successfully.

This did not make Chiara or Hilshire feel any better, and the immediate aftermath of the assault had handler and cyborg sitting side by side in the Agency ambulance, the elder letting the younger cry quietly into his shoulder as the vehicle drove away at high speed for the Agency hospital. Triela was stable enough for the moment. The bullet had ricocheted off the top of her skull at less than five degrees, only transferring enough energy to give her a bad concussion rather than simply turn her brain into mush.

On the other hand, Matteo's injuries needed immediate surgery to stitch him back together, or else he could lose his leg. Even small caliber bullets caused cavitation, after all, and there was significant risk of his leg going into necrosis. As it was, any other soldier wouldn't be walking ever again, but as a handler, it was guaranteed that, at the very least, Matteo would eventually be able to get a very high quality prosthetic leg and be able to go about life as a civilian.

So overall, this had been a good day.

Caterina was sitting on the ground, facing the Palazzo and leaning back against the wheel of the Puma. The mission had ended for her at this point, and all of her fratello's equipment had already been packed away. According to the scuttlebutt, their jamming equipment had helped prevent the Padanians from coordinating their return fire, and the small flanking mission had been the best they could muster. Outnumbered three to one by an enemy in constant radio communication, they had no chance.

"Good work today," said James, stepping out of the Puma and looking down at his cyborg. "How're you holding up?"

"Fine," said Caterina quietly, staring at the top of the Column of the Piazza Colonna.

James could very easily see that his cyborg was NOT fine. In contrast to the typical signs of stress, every aspect of his cyborg's behavior radiated a calm readiness for action. Her posture was relaxed but the way she had her arms braced against the wheel showed that she was ready to jump and run at a moment's notice. Typically, stress caused tension in the shoulders, and Caterina certainly was tensed up, but not in a defensive manner like most stressed individuals. Instead, her shoulders were cocked at an angle to make it easy for her to grab her knife or her pistol and defend herself. Most important was her expression, which had gone as flat as a cup of soda left out for a week on the counter.

"When was the last time you took off your ribbon?" asked James, sitting down beside her.

"Last night," replied Caterina with nearly serene languor. "Why?"

"You should wear it down more often," said James, reaching over and fingering one end of the bow. "Having it up in a ponytail is good, but some variety never hurt."

"You think so?" asked Caterina.

James answered by pulling the ribbon loose and letting her hair drop around her face. "Oops, better brush that back." With gentle hands, he pulled his cyborg's hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ears. As he watched, Caterina visibly sagged, letting her shoulder untense and leaning against James tiredly.

"Long day," said James simply.

"Yeah," said Caterina, quietly. Presently, she reached a hand up and wiped at her eyes.

"What's wrong?" James asked with alarm, turning to see Caterina, normally strong and confident, beginning to dissolve into tears. "Caterina, are you alright?"

"I-I'm scared," Caterina whispered, burrowing into James' shoulder. "I'm so scared, James."

James sighed, hugging the girl close. This was the first time she'd ever seen one of her comrades wounded. Such post battle jitters were understandable.

"Listen, Caterina, a gunshot is the risk we all take," said James quietly, running his hand through her hair soothingly. "I know it's difficult to see a cyborg like Triela get laid low like that, but with your training you should-"

"I'm not talking about me!" said Caterina sharply, jerking upright. "I'm scared for you!"

"Me?" asked James, confused.

"Did you see what happened to Signore Matteo's leg?!" said Caterina, leaping upright in distress. "It's hanging by a thread! It's barely attached to his body! He might not ever walk again!" Caterina was pacing now. "What if that happens to you?! What if-?!"

James casually knocked Caterina's legs out from underneath her and shifted to catch his surprised charge, keeping her from banging her head into the vehicle. "Now, listen, Caterina, and pay close attention, because I only want to do this once.

We are fighting in a war against the forces of chaos. We are set against a group of people who will do everything they can to upend this government and split apart a nation. For such people, the death and destruction of a civilization is nothing major, just a bump in the road to something much greater in their minds and much more impossible than they can truly comprehend. To prevent this, we go into the field and fight.

But fighting means getting hurt, and that is the price we will pay for bringing order to chaos. If I take a hit-"

Caterina jerked in his arms, fear and distress flashing across her face as the image of James, lying on the ground and covered in blood, never able to walk or use a gun or anything else ever again flashed through her mind. James kept a hold on her though, quickly locking her limbs so that any movement would simply dislocate the joints. Nothing the doctors couldn't fix later.

"-If I take a hit," continued James, "I'll need you to keep a level head and help me get away. Being afraid is normal, but you cannot let it control your actions. You must accept that I am able to take care of myself and that I understand the risks of our task. You cannot let this fear hinder our ability to work in the field. Do you understand?"

"Yes-"

"No, think about this. Do not simply reply. Do you, truly, understand what I'm saying?"

Caterina took a deep breath, stilling her muscles as if she was trying to line up a long range shot. Internally, however, she was filled with chaos, fear for her handler swallowing up everything in her mind. How could she have been stupid as to think that James was somehow invincible? Just because he could handily dismember her and hack into any computer system didn't mean that his body could hold itself together against a bullet!

But another voice intruded on her thoughts. It was her own voice, but calmer, surer, and just a little bit cocky.

"Hey, look, you're a Gen-2, right?" she asked herself. "You're not invulnerable yourself, y'know. Do you think James is that scared about you dying?"

"N-no," Caterina answered herself, mental voice still wavering in distress.

"But that mean's he's accepted that if you got shot, you'll probably take a lot of damage," herself replied. "And sure, the docs can fix you, but if you bleed out, you bleed out, right?"

"Yes."

"But James isn't that worried, is he? He's got confidence in your abilities and accepts that you understand the risks."

"Yeah."

"So calm yourself down. There's no way you can help him if you're panicking all the time," she chastised. "You're going to have to accept that there's always the possibility."

"There's always the possibility."

"Yup," said herself, fading into the background of her mind once again. "Now get out there and keep it up, 'kay?"

"Okay," said Caterina out loud, taking another deep breath. "You can let me go now James. I'm okay."

"Are you sure?" asked James, releasing his grip on her limbs.

"Yeah," Caterina replied, getting to her feet. "I understand what you're saying. You won't sugar coat things to try and make me feel better and I can trust your judgment. So try not to get hit, but if you do, I'll be there."

"Good girl," said James, standing and pulling Caterina back in for another hug. "Here. Your hair ribbon."

"Thanks," said Caterina, pulling her hair back and tying it down. "Do you think this looks good?"

"It does," complimented James. "Come on, let's get back inside. It looks like GIS is ready to go."

Caterina nodded, stretching herself out before wiping at her eyes again to clear away the remnants of her tears. She looked up again at the Column one last time before she entered the Puma.

"I guess," she reflected. "It's not been a completely horrible day."


	5. A Series of Investments

Weeks passed.

For the Social Welfare Agency, much changed, and yet much had not.

Triela was officially off the ready list for at least the next three months, if not longer. It was a testament to the resilience of First Generation hardware that the bullet had skipped off her skull. As it was, an examination determined that she was indeed suffering from a very traumatic head injury, but immediate treatment by the skilled surgeons and neurologists of Section Two had ameliorated most symptoms. Now all Triela needed was bed-rest and no more than light mental exercise. Knowing that she would be fine, however, did not make it any less chilling when Claes and Hilshire brought Triela back to the dorms in a wheelchair, the Princess of the Cyborgs dozing, and still drugged, under the cover of a blanket.

More distressing was Chiara and the state of her handler, Matteo. Matteo's injury had been severe by most standards, but for scientists used to creating fully cybernetic limbs that could withstand multistory drop tests, the creation of a fairly robust replacement pelvis and femur for an adult patient was almost easy. This meant that Matteo would be able to go into physical therapy many months ahead of schedule and, most likely, return to work within a year's time.

But for a cyborg, especially a First Generation cyborg, one year was a long time. For Chiara, who was nearly as old as Angelica, a year would probably take her to the end of her operational life. Even factoring in luck and the latest in muscle replacement technology, Chiara and Matteo would never go into battle again as a fratello. Chiara was, quite understandably, taking this very badly. She spent many days at her handler's side, talking with him and keeping him company while the muscles around his new bones healed, and during those times she regained some of her cheer. But around the dorms, where she had time to brood, her mood dropped considerably, and it was always depressing to be in the same room as her. Still, the cyborgs rallied about their sister and did their best to keep her company. Few of them could even imagine what it would be like watching their handler lie in bed, unable to move, and the prospect of never being able to work with him in the field again was terrifying enough to elicit empathy from all. It worked, to a degree, but Chiara needed to deal with this on her own, and the best thing they could do was support her every step of the way.

It would be pleasant, at this point, to say that life continued despite these changes, and that the cycle of deployment and training ground forever on. Such would imply that all was well and that Public Security, the GIS, and the SWA had a good hold on the internal security of Italy. It would imply that while yes, organized crime controlled a good chunk of the economy and there was much infighting regarding the status of the Italian Republic, such sentiments were a passing thing at best and would be crushed at worst. But to say as such would be to fabricate an illusion of the highest order, something no member of the intelligence community could possibly afford.

A nearly successful attack on the prime executive of a nation, any nation, was a nearly unheard of concept. Even the successful sniper kill of President Kennedy in the United States was widely considered to be a fluke, something that was so rare and impossible that it was unlikely to ever happen again. Should it happen again, it would always be a single person, likely mad or emotionally deranged, and only with slight training in using their weapon. For a serious, organized attack on the very residence of the Prime Minister to occur, enacted by individuals with non-civilian weaponry and the training to actually be a tactical threat, would have to mean that the ability of the Italian Government to protect its citizens from threats to their lives was incomplete at best and ruined at worst.

Little, if any, confidence remained, and one by one, the provinces started to fall.

To the south, faith in the economics of Rome remained, but faith in arms turned to the Mafiosi. Whether through fear for themselves or for their loved ones, the cajoling and the threats of the Mafia began to go to seed within the hearts and minds of the people of Southern Italy. Control slipped from the Guardia di Finanza, the Polizia, and the Carabinieri; moving at first slowly, then with increasing speed. Loyal officials, once secure in their offices and briefing rooms, suddenly found themselves assassinated by car bomb, by sniper, and even by poison. Corrupt officials, panderers to the Mafiosi, took their place, and between these and the increasing willingness of the populace to accept Mafia Rule, much of Campania, Apulia, and Basiliceta were lost. Only in the tip of Sicily and in Lower Apulia, the heel of the Italian Boot, was firm control maintained, backed by the Aosta and Pinerolo Brigades of Mechanized Infantry and a great deal of bargaining with the Cosa Nostra, Camorra, and the Sacra Corona Unita. An uneasy peace reigned, with both sides understanding that the other would annihilate them if given the chance.

Sicily, meanwhile, had been split. The Cosa Nostra controlled half of Sicily, most notably Palermo and Messina and its Strait. The other half, through sheer stubbornness, was still held by the People of Sicily, who began to call themselves the Sicilian Republic. Neither side was truly prepared for a war for control over the island, and so a stalemate was reached, pending one side getting the weapons and training to take over the other.

But in the north, nothing was true and everything was permitted. The Nuova Mala del Brenta, now suddenly faced with a populace with wavering confidence in the government and a terrorist movement that was more than willing to source goods from questionable resources, did everything possible to expand its control. Swiftly, and with unexpected surety, the NMB seized control of large swathes of territory in and around Venice, Padua, Ferrara, Parma, Milan, and Genoa, installing friendly officials aligned with the Armee per l'Indipendenza della Padania and the Lega Nord as they did so. Between vote buying, corruption, propaganda, and outright threats, the entirety of Northern Italy nearly managed to effectively secede from the Republic.

As it was, this was only partially successful. In Trentino-Alto Adige, Inner Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and Northern Veneto, loyalty to Rome remained, if only because they were the lesser evil to the NMB, and the Ariete Armored Brigade and Julia Alpine Brigade, backed enthusiastically by the local government and the populace, held the line at Trento and Verona, placing them under martial law and effectively turning them into battleground cities. So to were Piedmont and the Aosta Valley held, with the Taurinense Alpine Brigade deploying pre-entively and securing the regions before the NMB and the Padania could take root. In Tuscany, the famous Folgore Parachute Brigade, in concert with the Fruili Air Assault Brigade, was able to hold onto a Y-shaped section of territory, occupying, and placing under martial law, the cities of Bologna in the northeast, Genoa in the northwest, and Grosseto in the south.

To call Italy a republic at this time would be similar to calling an snake a type of lizard. Of course, there were many similarities, but you would be laughed out of the room for confusing the two.

* * *

James sat quietly in the hallway outside Commander Draghi's office, reclining on a bench next to a rather cheerful looking artificial potted plant. The hallways were painted beige and had a dark, rust colored carpet. It was, James decided, a rather morbid decorating decision. It didn't help that the only people in the area were dressed in dark suits and had grim, serious expressions on their faces.

"Mr. Spettro?"

James looked up. Draghi's secretary, a man in his mid-20s with shaggy brown hair, had opened the door.

"The Commander will see you now," said the secretary, opening the door fully.

"Thank you," said James courteously, stepping inside. The secretary's office was much more brightly furnished and less morbid, but its dark furniture still leant a serious air to the place that seemed to suppress cheer. As he walked past the secretary's desk, he noticed that it was scuffed about the edges. Older than he would have expected. The lamp, too, was aging, and the carpet could use a cleaning to keep up appearances.

James kept his visage unperturbed as he entered Draghi's, but he was suddenly worried. This wasn't a good sign. The spartan nature of the Commander's office had similar poor implications, though it was possible it was Draghi's personal taste and attempts to set a specific atmosphere rather than anything about the Section.

"Mr. Spettro, how can I help you?" asked Draghi in clipped tones, working through a stack of paperwork.

James paused, expecting Draghi to apologize for being so busy. The apology was not forthcoming. "Commander Draghi, how are you? Thank you for speaking with me."

"Mr. Spettro, you and I are both grown men in our middle years," said the Commander. "Indeed, you probably have more experience than myself in matters of fieldwork. Let us cut the bullshit. What does one of Section Two's gold and jewel encrusted Handlers want out of me?"

"Well sir, bullshit aside, I want access to Section One's intelligence network," said James bluntly. "I understand that you don't allow Section Two to speak to your sources directly."

"For good reason," said Draghi, hand tightening briefly on his pen before he continued with his work, face calm and relaxed. "There are few children who have the discretion necessary to maintain an agent's cover."

"With respect, sir, I believe my girl is up to it."

"And with respect, Mr. Spettro, she is not," Draghi returned, glancing up at James and skewering him with a look hot enough to punch through steel.

James was forced to backtrack. He had not expected such outright hostility. "If I may, sir, is there something you disagree with regarding Section Two operational doctrine?"

"No, there is not," said Draghi, pausing as he read through an expense chart. "Rather, there is something I disagree with regarding Section Two in its entirety."

"If I may-"

"You may not, unless it will effect your ability to do your job," snapped Draghi. "Permission denied, you may not have access to our intelligence network, Mr. Spettro. Dismissed."

James steeled himself. This would not be pleasant. "With respect, sir, I need those networks to get intel for Section Two operations."

"Section Two has and will continue to operate based on whatever intelligence Section One gives it," replied Draghi, finally setting down his paperwork to glare at James.

"Sir, Section One's intelligence is commonly top heavy and lacks cross referencing. It is functional, but-"

"Perhaps, Mr. Spettro, we could do a better job if we were not underfunded and understaffed!" Draghi spat. "Consider that we do not perform regular and complete equipment maintenance simply because we do not have the funding to do so!"

James let his shock show. A little theater was now necessary. "But sir, no operation can do that and be successful!"

"Do you think I don't know that?!" Draghi shouted back, rising to his feet in fury. "Do you think that I don't spend my nights, when I should be sleeping in my bed with my wife, worrying about how to keep this Section afloat?! Section Two has no idea what it takes, what we have to do, to keep them going on operations that don't fall on their asses and implode! So no, you do not get access to my intelligence networks, not only because operational security will be breached, but also because this Section cannot and will not allow its job to be absorbed by some babysitter in his fairy-tale world who thinks he's entitled to his life being handed to him on a silver platter! Now if there is nothing else you wish to trouble me with, dismissed!"

James said nothing, allowing Draghi to recover briefly, before: "I happen to know several wealthy individuals. I can put you in touch with them to secure funding through a front-business."

"Yes, let's also be illegal about this," said Draghi scathingly. "I think not. Any other bright ideas?"

"I'm serious sir," said James, stepping forward emphatically. "The Social Welfare Agency is a front for Section One and Two anyway. The organization is disguised as a philanthropic group. As long as my contacts make donations made out specifically to Section One, Section Two can't touch a cent."

Draghi granted James a flat and emotionless look. "Go on."

James stepped forward again. "Sir, surely the record books designate Section One's funding as separate from Section Two's? Find out what they say, and I can get you a talk with Michele Pagani. He's one of the richest men in Europe, and they pulled him for a while on Angelica's development. You can get a check for up to five million euros, and the man wouldn't even consider it to be more than pocket change."

"This doesn't help our equipment problems," said Draghi sharply, but with much less hostility than before. "That funding will go straight into operations and maintenance. A large part of the problem is that we simply don't have the equipment to perform more precise operations."

"That's fine, I also have engineering contacts," said James. "I can start a business in China or something and we can purchase or design hardware for precisely this purpose. It'll be a front, yes, and it'll be questionably legal for the company, but once we get the equipment we can sell it for whatever price. Section One will purchase it, but at that point you have plausible deniability."

Draghi sat down again, considering. "Dismissed, Mr. Spettro," he eventually said, quietly but with a single degree of respect, "and don't come back until I call you. You've given me a lot to think about."

"Yes sir," said James, nodding goodbye before making his way swiftly to the door and exiting.

"Have a good day sir," said the secretary, smiling slightly.

"I will, thank you." James exited the door quietly. His footsteps soon faded down the hall.

"Has he left?" asked Draghi, poking his head out the door.

"Yes sir," replied the secretary. "Sounds like he made quite the impression."

"He's interesting," said Draghi, opening the door more fully to stand in the doorway, arms folded across his chest. "Very well connected. Sounds like he doesn't really need his job."

"The handlers all have varying motivations, sir," said the secretary.

Draghi snorted. "Vengeance is hardly a motivation, Salvatorio."

"Perhaps not, but a desire to do good is."

"Do you really believe any one of those men think that way?"

"I can only hope. What did you think of his proposal?"

"In its original form, absolutely not," said Draghi with a derisive snort, before his expression smoothed out into a considering look. "...But the alternative is tempting."

"What is it?"

"I won't discuss it yet," said Draghi, turning to go back to his office. "We have work to do, Salvatorio. Bring me those reports as soon as you're finished."

"Yes sir."

* * *

The focus of both sections was the attack on the Prime Minister. The effectiveness of the GIS and the Cyborgs was never in doubt, and they were in fact widely praised by those in the know for their quick and decisive action. The real issue was how multiple agencies somehow managed to completely miss the signs of something this big. Either the terrorists were getting smarter or the agencies were getting more incompetent, and neither prospect was in any way favorable.

And so they searched. Huge piles of data were sifted through every day, looking for anything that could give them a lead. Little, if anything, turned up. As the influence of the Padania and the Mafiosi had increased, so too had the influence of Section Two's intelligence networks decreased. As power structures shifted, agents under cover needed to reorient themselves. It would be a while before the SWA could achieve what it could before Italy had broken up.

"They're calling it 'the Revolt of Northern Italy' now," said Priscilla sadly, sitting slumped in her chair in Section Two's break room. The cold remnants of a cup of coffee sat before her, and the break room television was playing the news.

"What else would you call it?" asked Olga with a sour expression, biting into an apple. She swallowed before continuing. "The south is still technically in government hands, at least."

"The north just has differing opinions," said Priscilla with a grimace. "We don't have to fight about it, do we?"

"Some would say that being unwilling to fight for your beliefs is a sign of weakness," replied Olga, one questioning eyebrow raised. "Should we not do our best to protect what is precious to us?"

"No, not at the expense of the lives of innocents," said Priscilla firmly. "When I was in the Guardia, I did everything I could to make sure our busts occurred when there was little or no chance of civilians getting caught in the crossfire."

"And the Padania make no such distinction," said Olga, considering the point. "I see what you mean. It is an admirable sentiment, Priscilla, but one I am not sure will survive. Either way, I admit that I have misjudged you. I had not thought you would consider such things so deeply."

Priscilla smiled briefly. "It's fine, Olga. It's better for me not to be so serious all the time."

"Thank you," said Olga, nodding. "But even so, with the way the politicians in the North are behaving, do you really think there will be opportunity to discuss political views over coffee?"

"Probably not," sighed Priscilla forlornly. "The Padania and the Lega Nord are doing everything they can to secede from the Republic, now that they've gotten control over a large section of Italy. It's only a matter of time if we don't stop them."

"And what's to say they won't do it anyway?" asked James, sitting in the chair next to Priscilla. "They certainly have the manpower."

Priscilla leaped into the air with a shriek, having heard nothing resembling a person moving into the chair. Olga smiled slightly. She had elected not to give Priscilla any indication of James' presence, for the purposes of her own amusement.

"James! What the hell?!"

"Sorry Priscilla, but you did say that being less serious was good for you," said James with a chuckle.

Priscilla pouted. "Not like that!"

"Perhaps not quite that abrupt, no, but he makes a good point," said Olga. "The Chief has already taken steps for if a civil war breaks out, but Section Two is not prepared for such a conflict."

"It's not our job, right?" asked James.

"No, it is not," said Olga. "We have the army for that."

"I suspect that it will not be that easy," said James with a grimace. "But I suppose you are right. We'll just have to trust the military on this."

* * *

"I don't trust the military on this," said James, later that week, in a dimly lit bar in Nice, France. It was not Michele Pagani's usual fare, but the wealthy multi-millionaire with the seven, soon to be eight, Ferraris had to admit that James had picked a nice place. The decorating, if nothing else, was sufficiently tasteful. The wine, too, was surprisingly good.

"I wouldn't either, the situation is far too delicate for artillery rounds," said Michele, sipping at a glass of Bandol red wine. "How did you get out of Italy?"

"You know me, Michele," said James with a secretive smile, pyramiding his hands in front of his face. "I have many friends."

"Ah. Smugglers then. Did you enjoy the hold?"

"Oh it was quite nice. Plenty of damp to get into all my belongings. And the salt was excellent for my skin."

Michele shuddered. "It sounds frightful."

"It was alright. I had company the whole way, so it wasn't too bad."

"Oh? And who was this companion of yours?"

"A girl," said James, leaning closer and lowering his voice. "With very special talents."

Michele froze. "There are many meanings to those words."

"Unfortunately, I don't like my women that way."

"Then you speak of the other subject. I cannot speak on that, you know this."

"I know just as much as you do, if not more."

"So you took their offer?" asked Michele, a hard edge entering his voice. "That work is not something that I can support."

"Perhaps, and I will admit I have been surprised on more than one occasion by the sort of work being done," agreed James. "But overall, I see it as the lesser of the two evils."

"Truly? You surprise me, James," said Michele, expression going very sour indeed. "I had thought you a man of greater principles than that. Good day, Mr. Spettro."

"Sit down, Pagani," said James firmly as Michele stood to leave. "We are not finished yet."

"Oh I think we are," replied Michele. "This is a recruitment trip, is it not?"

"No, it is not," said James. "It is something business related, and I mean that in the monetary sense."

Michele paused, giving James a considering look. Both men had been in the military and in covert operations for quite some time. Whatever James had in mind, Michele could tell that the man was confident Michele wouldn't be offended by it.

"Fine," said Michele, sitting back down. "Then what exactly is it that you want me to do?"

"I'm starting a company," said James, passing over a business plan. "I'd like you to be one of our angel investors, if everything goes to plan."

"Have you spoken to any of these people?" asked Michele, flipping through the business plan. It looked very legitimate.

"Not yet, but I know a lot of these people aren't willing to do what I want them to without guaranteed funding."

Michele flipped over the last page and sighed, still annoyed but with his conscience salved. "I won't give you an answer right now, James, especially considering what I suspect you'll be doing with this company. But the idea is good, I'll admit, and everything appears to be in order. Give me a week to read over this and do some research."

James nodded. "That's all I can ask. Have you had lunch yet?"

"No, I have not," said Michele, corking the Bandol. It had not yet been finished, and he was loath to leave a good wine at the table. "Are you inviting me?"

"I am," said James. "I'll even pick up the tab. There's a good little seafood place that sells some excellent mussels."

Michele shrugged. "I suppose I'll join you. Not my usual fare-"

"-my taste rarely is-"

"-but it will be a refreshing change, if nothing else," finished Michele, standing. "Do you have a car?"

"Nothing like yours," said James as the two men made their way to the register, "but I suspect a Ferrari will lack the space for three people."

"Ah, then this is rather inconvenient for me," said Michele, paying for the wine. "Perhaps another day then. You know how narrow the streets are."

The streets of Nice were not that narrow. "Yes, I understand. I'll speak to you later then," said James, as the two left the bar. "Good day, Michele."

"Good day, James." Michele nodded farewell and made his way to the Ferrari parked nearby, surrounded by a gaggle of spectators that kept their proper, respectful distance from the vehicle.

"I take it things went well?" asked Caterina, appearing beside James with a light step.

"Well enough," said James, as Michele looked back one last time before starting the engine. He gave a little wave, before turning to his cyborg. "Come along, we have more business to conduct in Nice." The two made their way across the lot to their rental, a nondescript Ford Focus.

Michele watched them go in his side mirror, a respectful distance kept between the two, with each subtly covering the other's blind spots. He turned his attention back to exiting the lot. A distasteful business, this. But, if he kept his distance, the amount of plausible deniability James had built into the plan left him with the highly tempting possibility of making quite a lot of money. Not that he needed any, but it had been awhile since he'd last taken a proper risk...

* * *

"It's very sad seeing this place dialing itself back," sighed James as he and Caterina worked their way through a large pile of mussels, the dark shelled bivalves swimming in a broth made of their own juices, white wine, cream, and butter. Thinly chopped scallions had been casually sprinkled across the top. Both members of the fratello had a glass of white wine, and a loaf of crusty bread was sitting between them.

"What do you mean?" asked Caterina. With a twist, she pulled the top shell off of a mussel and raised the meaty lower half to her lips. "Tastes great to me."

"You weren't here a few years ago," sighed James, tearing off a piece of bread and submerging it into the broth. "The bread was fresh, it came with the meal, the wine was amazing, and they would literally bring the mussels around your table for inspection before they cooked them."

"James, the bread is still fresh and the wine is still amazing," said Caterina with a roll of her eyes, cleaning her fingers and going for her glass. "The bread was only two euros and the mussels were in a giant tank where we could still see them."

"I didn't say they were worse, I only said that they were dialing it back," said James, pointing half a mussel at her before slurping up the second half. He paused a moment to chew and swallow before continuing. "Everything's delicious, of course, but it's the little things you miss at a place this great, you know?"

"I wouldn't, this is my first time here," said Caterina with a small laugh, nodding slightly to the right as the waiter appeared again. "It's nice though."

"Would mademoiselle and monsieur like anything else?" asked the man, an Algerian with impeccable manners.

"Could we perhaps purchase another bottle of this excellent wine?" asked James, gesturing at the Coteaux de Pierrevert, a white wine, the fratello was enjoying. "I am visiting a friend in Italy and would like to bring him a present."

"Ah, while you may certainly purchase a bottle, I would advise against going to Italy at the moment," said the waiter. "I have heard it is not very pleasant."

"We are aware, but this is a close friend who we are worried about," said James firmly. "Besides, he has recently lost a close family member and could use a little cheering up. You understand."

The Algerian nodded. He had lost several family members when the chaos in Libya had spilled over the border. "I understand fully. Allow me to wrap your wine in some paper to protect it from the light."

"Thank you very much," said James, slipping a ten euro note from his pocket. "Here, please take this as gratitude for your service."

"That is very generous of you, sir," said the Algerian, pocketing the bill with a smile, before leaving to retrieve the wine.

"That was rather generous of you, James," said Caterina quietly, soaking a piece of bread in the broth. "What's up?"

"Well you know we're not going to Italy," said James just as quietly, leaning forward to grab another mussel.

"Of course."

"The friend we're about to meet likes his wine, so this will be a good offering to appease the man."

"And what does this have to do with a ten euro tip for retrieving a bottle?"

"The Algerian is careful about his work-" said James, before slurping up another mussel. After swallowing, he continued. "-As you can tell by his manners, but anyone who is that careful by default is even more careful when tipped well."

"How do you know he's not going to just pocket the tip and do what he always does?"

"Because he's an immigrant, and immigrants always work harder than those who've lived here their whole lives," said James as he spied the waiter returning with the bottle, carefully wrapped in three layers of brown butcher's paper and tied shut with a loop of twine. "Ah, see here, our wine comes!"

"Monsieur," said the waiter with a nod, handing the bottle to James. "One bottle of Coteaux de Pierrevert."

"Thank you, thank you," said James, all smiles as he set the bottle aside on the table and gave the waiter a broad grin. "This will mean a lot to my friend. It has been a long time since he has had good French wine."

"It was my pleasure, monsieur," said the Algerian. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"That will be all, and thank you once again."

"And once again, it was entirely my pleasure, monsieur. Mademoiselle." The Algerian bowed and departed with a lightness to his step that even a child could see.

"And, usefulness aside... it is also always good to brighten someone's day," said James, watching their waiter go, before returning to the mussels.

* * *

James and Caterina stood outside a fairly large, sea side mansion a twenty minute drive from Nice. It was about four in the afternoon. James carried the bottle of wine in the crook of his arm, sleeved by a navy blazer with brass buttons, a white shirt, and khaki slacks with brown leather shoes and belt. Caterina held a sack of groceries that contained a loaf of bread and several very excellent tomatoes. She wore a black dress, cut modestly to emphasize her figure without being needlessly flashy. The two struck a simple, but elegant, image.

James rang the bell. "You're getting a new roommate," he said as they waited for the butler.

"They've already got the next Gen-2 up and running?" asked Caterina quietly, shifting the groceries to one arm and touching a hand to the braid that draped down and across her neck. Both she and her handler were unarmed.

"Yeah, apparently they've worked out most of the kinks," replied James. "They're stuck in Isola del Giglio at the moment."

The butler opened the door. He was very French. "Hello, Monsieur..."

"Iskios. Thanatos Iskios. We talked on the phone."

"Ah, yes, Monsieur Iskios and niece," the butler said, with a Parisian accent, "Monsieur Baryshnikov is waiting for you in the upstairs sitting room. Please, follow me."

"Vladimir Baryshnikov is a smuggler of great skill," said James quietly as they followed the butler. "I have told you very little, because his trust is both extremely valuable and won with difficulty. Suffice to say, however, that he is the best in the business. Wait, and follow my lead."

"I understand," Caterina replied as they climbed the stairs, mouth in a perturbed frown. "But what does that have to do with us?"

"The organization will need transportation to places that might be unfriendly," said James as they made their way up the stairs. "I have worked with Vladimir before, and he has always delivered."

"But... if he's a smuggler..."

"We'll discuss that later. For now, just trust me, alright?"

"Alright," said Caterina with a calming breath as they drew up in front of the sitting room. The Parisian butler went in first, announced their presence, then stepped aside to let them in.

Caterina immediately noted that the sitting room was very much optimized for sitting. On a white ceramic tiled floor, three large, squashy looking white leather couches were arranged around a dark mahogany coffee table to face two French doors and the balcony beyond, where more chairs and tables for lounging about outdoors were placed. The white-painted walls were lined with bookshelves, also in mahogany, holding various tomes and the occasional modernist marble sculpture. Strikingly, the nooks in the bookshelves were occasionally filled with a fantastically well made custom weapon. There were several handguns, both pistols and revolvers, multiple shotguns, and an old Kalashnikov series rifle that, while lovingly cared for, bore enough scars that it had to have an interesting history.

"Thank you, Andre," said a deep, bass voice, with a strong Russian accent, from the balcony. Caterina looked out the doors to see a very tall man standing in a white suit with his back towards them.

The door closed behind them.

"I remember you say that you will bring bread and tomatoes," said Baryshnikov. "Please put groceries on coffee table and join me on balcony."

"We also brought wine," said James simply, making his way to the couches and placing the wine down with a thunk.

"Good. We drink later," said Baryshnikov. "Now come, view of sea is quite beautiful from here."

Caterina looked at James, who shrugged and nodded towards the table. Caterina set the bag down gently, and followed James to the balcony.

"Girl, come here," said Baryshnikov. Caterina looked to her handler again, who nodded. With a grimace, the cyborg stepped forward to come alongside the Russian and looked up.

And up and up. From a distance, he was a tall man, but from up close he was enormous. Under the lines of the suit, great coils of muscle rippled up and down his body, setting Caterina's teeth on edge. This was a dangerous man, and her conditioned instincts were already telling her to get out of grabbing range.

"Come, let me look at niece Thanatos has never mentioned," said Baryshnikov, reaching down with one massive hand and cradling her chin with a gentle grip. "Ah, I see, I see... there is no resemblance. Tell me, truly, how are you and James related?"

"Er," mumbled Caterina, eyes darting to her handler for guidance. He stared back impassively. "Well, James is sort of my mentor and sort of my father, I guess."

"Very descriptive," said Baryshnikov with a small smile, before letting her free to look back out to see. "What is your name, child?"

"Caterina."

"Caterina, look out to the ocean. What do you see?"

Caterina blinked and turned to face the Mediterranean. The sun was bright over head, the beams reflecting off the surf sharply, making it hurt to look at. White foam formed near the rocks below, the balcony overhanging a rock formation, where the water went from a deep blue to a lighter sea green. Boats and ships were scattered, seemingly at random, across the surface, and some sea birds flew about. From here, it seemed like the sea stretched on forever, leading to anywhere in the globe as it stretched to and beyond the horizon. It could be considered beautiful, Caterina decided, as a light breeze blew back a few of her bangs.

"I see... a lot of opportunities," said Caterina, looking back up at Baryshnikov. "What about you?"

"I see something similar," said Baryshnikov, leaning down onto the railing, staring at the horizon. "You say James is your father?"

"The closest I have," said Caterina, looking back out to sea. "I'm an orphan, you see. Or I was, before the Agency, and James, found me."

"The Agency? The one for social welfare?" asked Baryshnikov.

"Yes," said Caterina, folding her arms on the railing and resting her chin on them. She kept one leg out of synch with the other in her stance, ready to fall back and out of reach if necessary. "I... don't have a good family background."

"Eh, is true for many children these days," said Baryshnikov with a shrug, his eyes never leaving the horizon. "In Russia, I see many boys and girls scrabbling for bread in alleyway."

"Scrabbling for bread was... the least of my worries."

"Truly? You are strong girl then."

Caterina wasn't sure if she should feel bashful or proud at that. The two lapsed into silence that soon stretched into the awkward, making Caterina uneasy.

"What do you think of James?" asked Baryshnikov. He shifted slightly and still did not look at her.

"James is..." Caterina paused. There were a lot of things about James that made him a wonderful handler, but the way Baryshnikov refused to meet her eyes made her reconsider the situation.

Typically, the polite converser would make sure to make eye contact, and Baryshnikov was certainly rich enough to know that. But the Kalashnikov on the wall spoke to a violent past and a man who guarded himself closely. The eyes were often said to be the windows of the soul, and making eye contact would reveal a lot about him when in dangerous company. His choice of attire was also interesting, considering that he was receiving casual guests and not high ranking members of, say, the Politburo. The movement though, that made her think the hardest. It wasn't a "I'm going over here" shift, but more of a tightly controlled fidget, the slight movement possibly getting more comfortable on the railing but also usable to conceal uneasiness. There was something about the situation that... that... wait...

"You're interrogating me!" accused Caterina, stepping back indignantly. "You're trying to figure out how I think!"

Baryshnikov finally turned and gave her a flat stare, looming over her intimidatingly. "And what makes you think that?" he asked.

Caterina stilled herself, reigning in her brief emotional outburst. "You're not making eye contact because you're trying to throw me off my game," she began, folding her arms and returning the stare with impressive composure, face as near to impassive it could get in the face of her conditioning telling her to kick this man in the knee and shatter it. "You've also made sure to position yourself-" Caterina gestured at the balcony "-so that you don't need to look at me immediately. You wore a suit to try and intimidate us with a display of your professionalism and your musculature, but you did it subtly so that it wasn't vulgar and put you at a disadvantage. You're gun on the wall was also placed to show that you're a man capable of violence if necessary, but the way you fidgeted just now showed me that you're not just making conversation but rather trying to interrogate me to find out my ability to keep secrets." Caterina scowled slightly. "And looking back on the questions you've asked, those are also capable of revealing a lot about my personality. I shouldn't have answered them."

For a long moment, the cyborg and the Russian held their staring contest, waiting for the other to flinch. Suddenly, Vladimir broke out into boisterous laughter.

"Haha, very good reasoning, myshi!" he complimented, slapping her on the shoulder companionishly. "Is not my business what you and James do together, but clearly he is teaching you some tricks!"

"He's a good teacher," allowed Caterina with a slight smile of triumph.

"Ah, is true, is true, he is very patient with, how you say, 'the newbie'," said Vlaidimir, draping a massive hand across her shoulder and steering her back to the doors, where James was standing with his hands in his pockets with an air of indifference. Caterina knew him well enough by now that she recognized his "I am very relieved that worked out" expression instantly. "Did James ever tell you about time when we track down Albanian smuggler and get help for job?"

"No, he's not told me a lot about his past," said Caterina. James fell into step beside the two as Vladimir ushered the cyborg to the sofas. "Understandably."

"Nyet! James, why you not tell own protege about funny story in past?" asked Vladimir. He turned to the door. "Andre! Ice, a cutting board, and some olive oil, s'il vous plait!"

"I never told her because it was never relevant," said James dryly, taking a seat beside Caterina. "The time with the Albanian is funny only because of the amount of alcohol we drank, anyway."

"What, you think children her age can't appreciate drunkenness as humor?" asked Vladimir rhetorically, stepping to the door as Andre appeared, taking the implements from the butler, who seemed rather resigned to being errand boy. "Thank you Andre! Now, Caterina, is true what James say, not much happen on job except for James teaching Albanian new tricks. What is really funny is when we end up in Croatia and find completely empty winery. Oh, James, you get nice wine," he commented, unwrapping the bottle. "I put this in ice. Anyway, so we at winery, and no idea where owner is, so we decide to live there for few days and leave cash for compensation. We make good paycheck that job anyway." Here, Vladimir pulled out a knife from under the coffee table and began to slice the bread, leaning in conspiratorially and lowering his voice. Caterina found herself leaning forward in anticipation, despite the inanity of the story. "That evening, we get bottle from wine cellar and die from quality!" Vladimir punctuated the sentence by throwing his hands up in the air, carefully missing Caterina and James, and waggling the knife about as if emulating the convulsions of a fish tossed onto land. "Is so good! Is magical wine, pressed from grapes planted by fairies! Ohhhhh, Caterina, you have no idea. We finish bottle while cooking dinner, so I send Albanian down to get more wine. He come back with five bottles of fairy wine, and we open them all!" Bread sliced, Vladimir took out the tomatoes and began turning them into thin disks. "Over course of dinner, we finish all five, and decide to get different type. So we looking in wine cellar and you know what we find?"

Caterina shrugged, amused at the Russian's exclamation mark filled discourse. "What did you find?"

"We find fifty year old cask of rakija! How a cask of rakija go undrunk in wine cellar, I do not know, because rakija is Croatian specialty liquor!" Tomatoes sliced, Vladimir arranged the disks on slices of bread and gently drizzled several lines of olive oil on top of it. "At time, I only have cheap knock off before, so I say to James and Albanian: 'This we must drink now.' They never have rakija before, so they agree, and we bring cask back upstairs, where we open and begin real party!"

"At this point," interjected James. "It is worth mentioning that the cask was about five liters in volume."

"Bah, is interesting side note, nothing more!" said Vladimir, waving away the comment and handing James a bread-with-tomatoes. "Here, put this in mouth and keep quiet while I keep pretty girl entertained, da?"

James rolled his eyes as he took the food. "Considering how drunk we got the Albanian..."

"Anyway," said Caterina, recovering from the brief shock, and embarrassed blush, at Vladimir's compliment. "So you'd brought the cask up from the wine cellar. Then what happened?"

"Then we play traditional Russian drinking game!" said Vladimir, prepping another slice and handing it to Caterina. "Is called 'Bear Paw'. We start with full glass of wine and pass around until everyone have one drink. Then, we top glass off with rakija! Of course, we first make sure wine goes well with rakija, but point is we start betting on who can drink more in one pass. Albanian is young, only twenty something, and thinks he is badass. We drink him under table!" Vladimir broke into raucous laughter at the memory, preparing his own slice and taking a bite. "You should have seen him, upside down and falling off chair! Maybe we teach it to you, eh?"

"No," said James, vetoing the decision quickly. "That's not wise."

"I can handle it!" said Caterina. "Probably."

"The 'probably' is what worries me," said James, giving her a raised eyebrow. "Let's not risk it, shall we? Now, drinking aside, let's get down to business." James finished off his bread and leaned back, crossing his legs as he looked to Vladimir. "I need to source transportation throughout Europe for myself and my colleagues. I need it to be fast, reliable, but most of all-"

"Discrete, yes, I figured," said Vladimir, brow furrowed in concentration. "I have many drivers who can move you, no questions asked, but they will talk to each other. You will need specific driver or drivers. Is not cheap."

James nodded. If Vladimir reserved specific drivers, then securing their silence and pulling them off the roster for regular runs would be a hefty notch in his profits indeed. "I'm not sure yet how much I can get for you, but five hundred euros per trip sounds fair."

"Nyet, eight hundred minimum," said Vladimir.

And so the haggling began. Caterina could barely follow as the numbers and the arguments flew thick and fast, James evidently accustomed to dealing with this sort of thing. Instead, the cyborg simply watched, sipping slowly at her wine as the two men argued, reasoning and gesticulating in growing crescendoes that ended in minutes of guffawing laughter before starting anew.

"Fine then, I will take six hundred," said Vladimir finally. "What say you?"

James thought briefly. Six hundred euros sounded good, and was something the budget could probably cover. "Alright, deal, but-!" -he retracted his hand before shaking properly with Vladimir- "-this is subject to change. I'll visit again if I need to, alright?"

"Yes, yes, is easy to change price, only need give favor," said Vladimir with a smile. "Maybe I have you, eh, persuade some people for me?"

"We'd prefer not, but if it becomes necessary, we will see," said James, shaking Vladimir's hand. "As long as your drivers can get us anywhere in Italy..."

"Bah, do not forget, I am Vladimir Baryshnikov! I am smuggling king of this side of Mediterranean! I hire only best drivers!"

"Well, this section of the Mediterranean at least," said James with an amused smile. "But yes, I understand."

"Good, good, and remember, I have many things to sell if you need equipment in pinch," said Vladimir, pouring everyone more wine. "Or, I buy from you. Give good price for undamaged equipment."

"That's always a plus," said James. "Perhaps something to discuss tomorrow?"

"Yes! For tonight, you will stay here," said Vladimir magnanimously. "But first dinner! Properly! Andre!"

"Yes sir?" asked the butler, appearing seemingly from thin air with a stealth matched only be James. Caterina considered the possibility of Andre having once been special ops, but decided against it.

"We have herrings, yes? Please bring platter of grilled herrings from kitchen."

"Very good sir." Andre immediately vanished, moving swiftly but silently through the sitting room doors. Caterina revised her opinion of the man, and decided he had to have been a former member of the French intelligence agency.

* * *

The evening that followed was something of a whirl to Caterina. For a little while, it felt like she was on an island, the sun shining down upon her as she lay on her back, staring into the sky. Dinner had been a long, extended affair, with the food coming very slowly. After the herrings had been a pesto, along with several more bottles of wine. Vladimir placed them in the ice bucket to chill, finishing James' bottle by pouring out to each of them.

As the night went on, Caterina found herself strangely cheerful, the world taking on a bright, clarion quality as she drank more wine. It was not unlike the sensation she had right after taking a dose of conditioning. Her senses felt somewhat deadened, like they'd been covered with a thin sheet of velvet. Things she tasted were just as vibrant as ever though, which she briefly considered, going quiet as she pondered the somewhat contradictory nature of this feeling. This was when the island had appeared, and Caterina let herself be carried off to it as she contemplated the contradiction.

About two hours later, with James and Vladimir still going strong, Caterina snapped out of her silence with the revelation that she was very, very drunk.

"James," she said solemnly, placing a hand on his arm, picking words very carefully. "I think that I may be drunk."

"Caterina, my dear, you are extremely drunk," said James with a small snort of laughter, smoothing back a lock of hair that had fallen loose. "Lie down, it'll make you feel better."

Caterina immediately keeled over into his lap, giggling inanely. " 'Kay. I'll just lay down here."

James froze briefly, hands in the air as he considered what to do with the drunk cyborg in his lap. After a moment, he decided to indulge her for the evening and draped one hand across her abdomen and ran the other through her hair, pulling loose her hair tie and laying it on the table.

"What are your plans, James?" asked Vladimir, raising his glass to his lips and taking a sip.

"Mm, probably just work," said James. "If not official, then consultant work. Nothing else in this world for me."

Vladimir raised an eyebrow, glancing down at Caterina, who hadn't reacted to James' comment.

"Caterina counts as work," said James, patting his cyborg on the waist. Caterina giggled again, nestling herself further into his lap. "...To an extent. She's very low maintenance, which is nice."

"And what sort of work involves a little girl?"

"I'm not little!" protested Caterina, raising a hand and waving it in Vladimir's general direction. "I'm a... a... I'm thirteen!"

"And with the alcohol tolerance of a thirteen year old too," said James, scratching her behind one ear. He turned his attention back to Vladimir. "It's work that I'd rather not go in to. You know me and the skeletons in my closet, Vladimir. I don't pry into your closets."

"You have picked up new skeleton then?" asked Vladimir. "Or is it still alive?"

"It's... it's there, let's just put it that way."

"Hey James, can I be one of your skeletons?" asked Caterina, rolling over to look at him with wide, hopeful eyes. "I'd LOVE to be one of your skeletons. That'd be neat."

James gave her a dubious look. "Caterina, do you even know what we mean by 'skeleton'?"

"Yeah! You mean the stuff you've done in the past that's morally questionable, right?" asked Caterina rhetorically, raising a hand to run a finger down James' jaw. "So if you do me, it'd be a morally questionable thing, right? Then I'd be a skeleton in your closet!"

James gave her a flat stare.

"What?"

James sighed. "I'm going to chalk that down to you not realizing what you're saying," he said, rolling her back over to face away from him as Vladimir broke down into nearly hysterical laughter.

Afterwards, Caterina wasn't allowed anymore wine and sobered up some. It was enough that she kept any awkward comments stifled in giggles and was able to make her way to Vladimir's guest room on her own. James was still talking to Vladimir as Caterina made her way along the darkened hallways and their sandstone tiled floors. Slipping her shoes and stockings off, Caterina took great delight in shuffling along, feeling the rough-smooth sandstone rub against the soles of her feet. Reaching the guest room, she flicked on the lights to examine the place. The sandstone changed to limestone at the door, the reddish brown of the sandstone contrasting with the clean off-white of the polished limestone. As she stepped over the threshold, Caterina made a quiet whining noise at the loss of texture, but accepted it as necessary as she examined the walnut furniture and the clean, white sheets on the bed. An open window, small and square, but just the right size for leaning on, looked out over a sheer cliff and out towards the dark sea.

Deciding she should probably shower, Caterina, made her way to the adjacent bathroom, where everything, from the floor to the ceiling, was white with stainless steel fittings. Gently illuminated by a set of halogen lights, the shower was tiled with small ceramic tiles, only about an inch square, with well scrubbed white grouting in between. Deep and wide, the shower was shaped like a large semi-circle, with its base recessed beneath the floor. It was enclosed by a railed, swinging glass door and had a bench made of white marble, canted slightly upward to keep you from slipping off and running the length of the arc. Shampoo and soap were neatly laid out in recesses at the ends of the bench, cut down, scored, and notched to allow water to run out.

Standing in the doorway, Caterina reached behind her and pulled down the zipper on her dress. It took a little flexibility, but it was nothing she couldn't manage. With the dress now sitting loosely upon her shoulders, Caterina pushed the straps off, letting them slide down her arms as the dress fell of its own accord down her body and pooled about her feet. Carefully, Caterina stepped forward and out of the dress, before pivoting slowly on one foot and reaching down to pick it up before it wrinkled. She hung the dress upon a handy clothes rack before reaching around and unhooking her bra. Holding it in her hands, she contemplated the article of clothing, thinking about where she got it, before the cool night air made her shiver and she pulled down another hanger.

It struck her, as she hung the bra up on the rack, that James had gotten her all of the things she owned. For some reason, this was suddenly extremely significant. The panties she was wearing, for example, were once held in his hands before he gave them to her. Perhaps, even, he had bought them himself, wanting to make sure his cyborg had good underwear, because bad underwear was itchy and uncomfortable and could loosen her focus on the job. The thought made her smile as she hung took them off and hung them up as well.

But, Caterina thought as she walked to the shower, it wasn't really what James did for her that made her happy. Swaying slightly before the shower, she squinted and turned the water on, the temperature automatically setting to a comfortable 43 degrees Celsius. From the ceiling, water came down like droplets of rain from a light cloud burst, steam quickly beginning to fill the shower. Pressing her palm flat against the door, Caterina pushed it open and ran her hand underneath the water, letting it patter and drip down her arm. The water continued down and reached her shoulder, running down her side and pooling at her feet. No, she decided, it wasn't what he did for her, but what she did for him that made her happy.

Caterina stepped into the shower, shutting the door behind her, and under the gentle rain of warm water. With a sigh, she lifted her head and let the onrush flow across her face, luxuriating in the embrace of the liquid. She thought about helping James in the field, of the role she played in his life, and she felt happy. Raising her arms with a smile, she turned slowly, letting herself get lost in the motion as she closed her eyes and let the world slip away. This was a good thing, she decided, to belong to someone. She was a useful weapon, a useful tool, something that James could always depend on.

And, thought Caterina, he was a good master to serve. Although "master" wasn't the right word. She couldn't quite grasp what it should be, but it would do for now. Maybe when she was more sober she could think of the right thing. But for now, under this water, she could live with calling James her master and calling herself his weapon. Because James was kind. James cared for her, kept her from bad habits and steered her toward good ones. He gave her purpose and meaning, and there were few things more important than that. If she could be said to be a sword, then James made sure she was always sharp and clean, ready to be used at any time and never to fall into rust and into ruin.

It didn't hurt, she thought with a sudden blush, that he was often touching her. It was probably nothing more than making sure she understood his meaning, but there were times when they weren't strictly on the job or when they weren't training that he would touch her on the shoulder or on the head, and these were touches that felt different. They were not imperative, with a strictness that demonstrated order and direction, but rather soft, still with meaning but with a purpose entirely separate from order and direction.

He had nice hands, Caterina suddenly noted, and her blush seemed to increase. She sat down on the bench and pulled her legs up against her, hugging her knees as a tiny fire seemed to light in her chest. His hands were rough and calloused from years of use, but they had great dexterity and potential for both tenderness and violence. She wondered what he could do with them other than fight and write and read...

Caterina was not young enough to be unfamiliar with the idea of sex. It was an interesting concept, and it was something that she had thought little of. But now, as the fire in her chest seemed to bloom and brighten, spreading through her body with a shudder, she wondered what it might be like. She knew hands were involved, that much was certain. Touch was integral to human experience, after all, and something as intimate as sex must involve touching. What would it be like if James could touch her that way?

And furthermore, unlike a knife or a gun, she was a unique weapon in that she had many different functions, and she knew that James had no other females in his life. Sure, there were the other cyborgs and the female employees, but James bore no ring, and she saw nothing that betrayed a relationship with another. A night with her handler, with nothing to separate them except the space between their bodies, and even then... She would be able to play her part, more so than ever before, and a weapon that could do more than just one function, and do it well, was certainly better than a tool that knew only one task.

"Caterina?" came James' voice from the bedroom.

"I'm in the shower," she called back, pulling her arms tighter and nestling her head into her knees. "Could you come in? I want to talk to you."

Footsteps, preceded first by the sound of a blazer being removed and hung on the back of a chair. Then a pause at the doorway as James took his shoes and socks off, before making his way into the bathroom.

"Are you alright?" he asked, turning and seeing his cyborg huddled on the bench. "Did you throw up?"

"No, I'm alright, I've just been thinking," said Caterina, letting one foot slip to the floor. "I was thinking about our roles in the Agency, actually."

"Are... you sure you're alright?" asked James, tilting his head sideways in concern. Caterina's inflection was off, and her posture was unusual.

"Yes, I'm sure," said Caterina with a smile, placing both feet on the floor and her hands at her sides. "I actually came to a realization, you know, about being your weapon. I've been a good weapon, right James?"

"Yes," said James, growing more concerned. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just thinking about how to be a better weapon," said Caterina, pushing herself up and stepping carefully over the wet tile to the door. She pulled it inwards, the door latching into a notch that kept it open. "You know, self improvement and all that. You taught me to do that."

"Yes, I did," said James, taking a half step back.

"Well I realized that we've never had sex," said Caterina with a smile, reaching up and hooking a finger into James' collar. It was a testament to the amount of alcohol James had drunk that he wasn't able to react fast enough to avoid it. "I was thinking... that we should correct that."

"Caterina, that's not a good idea," replied James, placing a hand upon hers and trying to force it off. She clung stubbornly on, hooking her finger around the button and not letting go. "Caterina, stop, we can't do this."

"Why not?" asked Caterina, eyes wide and innocent as she stepped forward again and closer to her handler. Her other hand came up and began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt, starting from the bottom. She managed two before James' other hand was able to pin her and keep her from progressing.

"Because I'm forty and you're thirteen," said James firmly.

"Age doesn't mean anything," replied Caterina with a half-lidded grin. She pushed herself up on her tiptoes and pulled down on James' collar. Now the man stubbornly refused to give. "Aww, don't be mean, James..."

"I'm not being mean, I'm being rational," said James. "You've had too much to drink and you're not thinking clearly Caterina. Stop it now."

"But I don't want to stop!" protested Caterina with sudden intensity. "I want you to be able to use me for more than just one thing!"

"I use you for plenty of things-"

"You use me to fight, to get into buildings you can't get into, and that's it!" said Caterina, voice hitching. "I can't go and kill enemies for you and I can't collect information because I'm too weak and too old! There's only one job I can do and I want to be able to do more than that!"

"Sex is not a job you should be undertaking," said James, trying to pull Caterina's hand away from his shirt. The girl exerted her strength and prevented it. "You are still a child, Caterina, you only need to do one job."

"I'm going to die in two years, James!" Caterina shouted back, starting to get tearful. She didn't know if it was from frustration or from sadness. "Damn it, why won't you let me do this for you?!"

"Because I have seen too many girls do it for stupid reasons and I don't want you to be one of them!" James finally shouted back.

Caterina went silent, before her gaze narrowed. "My reason is not stupid."

"...No, it isn't," granted James with a sigh, "But the action you are trying to take is."

"Why?" asked Caterina furiously. "Why is it so wrong for me to try and do this? Why does age matter? Why do you care so much? I'm a weapon! A tool! This is what we do!"

"Don't you dare lump yourself with all the other tools at my disposal," said James with equal ferocity, voice going quiet in anger. "You are infinitely more precious to me than some gun I picked up off the black market. I do not point you at my enemies and shoot, I use you with care and consideration. You can do many things nobody else, or at least few other people, can do, and-"

"What can I do? I manage data! I analyze videos! Maybe do some acrobatics occasionally!"

"And who else can do this?" asked James. "Name a person."

"Someone. Anyone!"

"Nobody in the SWA. Nobody I knew in the CIA. Not even I can do what you can do."

"You taught me everything I know."

"Only about computers and data. I can't do a backflip, after all."

Caterina sniffled, staring into her handler's eyes for a long moment before finally letting go with a weak sob. James immediately gathered her into his arms as she began to cry.

"Oh Caterina, never doubt your usefulness to me," said James soothingly as his cyborg clung tightly to him. "It doesn't look like much, I know, but you are a specialized weapon, not a swiss army knife. They do a lot of things, but do them all only half way. You don't want that, do you?"

Caterina shook her head into his shoulder.

"There, you see? Trust me, Caterina, and know that you will always be one of the best weapons I've ever had."

Caterina nodded. "Ok," she managed. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," said James, rubbing small circles in her back. "I understand where you're coming from, and it doesn't help that you're not thinking all that well."

"I really drank too much, didn't I?" asked Caterina with a hiccuping laugh.

"Yeah, you really did. Now come on, finish your shower. You should get some sleep soon."

"Okay."

James let go, and after a moment of cuddling, his cyborg did the same. Soaking wet, he nodded to her as she turned to shut the door. Caterina smiled and nodded back at him. She would be okay.

The door shut with a click.


	6. Package Retrieval Mission

The morning after was, for Caterina, simply awkward. She hadn't been nearly drunk enough not to remember what had happened, only that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Breakfast started quietly on her part, mostly out of mortification but partly in order to watch and listen while James and Vladimir sorted out the business of buying and selling goods and services.

"Is easiest if you give driver call," said Vladimir, spearing a slice of sausage on his plate and eyeing it consideringly. "They will know local office number and come pick up goods."

"That won't work as well," said James, sipping from a bowl of cafe au lait. "My work is confidential in nature, I don't want to risk operational security."

"Eah, that is more difficult, but not impossible," said Vladimir, before biting the sausage off his fork and chewing contemplatively. "Mmph-" -he swallowed, before continuing- "-I know, you salvage what you can, then give to driver. Driver take or give money, then transport to local office."

"Hmmm... what do you think Caterina?" asked James, looking to the girl sitting beside him, prodding at a slice of bread with her fork.

Caterina, her hair loose and unstyled for the moment, winced. "Erm, it sounds... a little cumbersome, to be honest."

"What problems do you see?"

"Other than the multiple trips the driver has to take?" Caterina asked rhetorically, keeping her eyes on her plate. She traced a line in the sausage grease with the tines of her fork. "There's more than one transaction, which introduces the possibility for corruption and counterfeiting of goods. The driver also doesn't have any oversight on the way between the office and the job, so if the driver gets compromised, we, er." She glanced up and realized that Vladimir was giving her a rather flat look. Caterina winced again, realizing that she was calling into question the integrity of his business. "Sorry, sir. I'm just saying what I see."

Vladimir sighed. "No, no, you are right, plan is full of holes," he said, waving away the apology with one hand. "But I have no better plan."

"Maybe we could call the driver when we need to buy something or have things to sell?" asked Caterina. "That way, we can meet somewhere secure and make sure the transaction is legitimate?"

Vladimir and James exchanged a surprised look. That was a fairly solid plan.

"I like it," said James with a grin, reaching over to ruffle her hair. Caterina ducked out of the way, blushing violently. James blinked before turning to Vladimir. "Will that work for your people?"

"Yes, it should be fine," said Vladimir, raising an eyebrow as he glanced between the two. Caterina was very carefully hiding behind her hair, averting her eyes as she concentrated on eating her breakfast. She was still blushing, if slightly less so. "Eh... will need some planning, but you will have secure phone number of driver and local office. If you are okay with that, my people will make it work."

"Good. We'll need transportation into Italy," said James, "Can you arrange it?"

"Easy," said Vladimir, waving a fork dismissively. "Just need to know where."

"Isola del Giglio," said James, picking up another slice of bread. "Pass the butter?"

(}{-}{)

After breakfast came time for tea and coffee, during which Vladimir went to make his phone calls.

"How's your head?" asked James, sipping at a tall glass of Russian-style tea, diluted with hot water and sweetened with lemon curd.

"It's alright," said Caterina, staring into her glass as she slowly stirred her tea with a long handled spoon. The sugar within the glass had dissolved long ago.

"No pain?"

"No."

"That's good."

Silence reigned, save for the clink of Caterina's spoon against the sides of her glass and the low murmur of Vladimir's voice, conversing in accented Italian, from the next room over.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed," said James, leaning back in his chair and sipping his tea with an air of detached dignity. "We all do weird things when we're drunk, especially when we're not used to the effects."

"But... what I did was wildly inappropriate," said Caterina, still refusing to meet his eyes. "Shouldn't I be?"

"Well, it depends," said James, pausing in his perusal of tea and looking at Caterina from over the top of his glass. "Do you actually want to have sex with me?"

Caterina went bright red and hunkered down in her seat. "...I'd rather you than someone else..."

James sighed, rolling his eyes. "That doesn't answer the question."

"...I guess not."

More silence. To be honest, Caterina hadn't previously considered the there had been a certain amount of truth to her words last night, sex wasn't something she was at all comfortable with while she was properly conscious. What she'd heard from rumor and hearsay was one thing, and it was certainly a possibility a few years down the line when she was had a better understanding of just the idea.

James was just... everything she admired and everything she aspired to. She wanted to make James proud of her and she wanted to be able to do her job just as he wanted. She could accept being regarded as a weapon or a tool, and she was absolutely at James' disposal to use as he wished. But sex? It was an odd thing to think about, and it was something that forced two not-quite-meshing thoughts together, and the grinding noise of the mismatched cogs made it difficult to think.

"I guess..." Caterina finally managed, "...that I'm not really sure. I haven't really thought about it."

"Then chalk it up to being drunk and leave it at that," said James with finality. "Once you figure it out, come tell me, alright?"

"Alright," said Caterina quietly, before finally looking up through her bangs. "You're not angry?"

"Like I said, you were drunk," said James with a shrug, taking a sip of tea. "Don't worry about it."

Caterina smiled for the first time that morning, smoothing a lock of hair behind one ear. " 'Kay."

(}{-}{)

The plan was to board the _Quando a Firenze_, a Princess V42 weekender yacht, and ride it all the way from Nice to Isola del Giglio. After leaving the harbor of Nice, it was easily possible to disappear completely from prying eyes, allowing the fratello to remain mostly undetected as they made their way south. A quick shopping trip for clothes and toiletries later, and the fratello was on its way to Isola del Giglio, lounging upon the bathing platform in their swimwear. James was wearing typical swim trunks, black with gray swooshes at the bottom, while Caterina had decided on a simple and conservative two piece of deep maroon.

"This is my kind of job," said James happily, putting on a pair of sunglasses and folding his arms behind his head. "Plans going to plan, a luxury yacht to laze about on, and plenty of good weather."

"It feels really odd," said Caterina, sitting up and tapping a finger on the mat they were lying on. She'd let her hair down into a loose braid. "I feel like I should be doing something. Did we bring a textbook I could look at?"

"Caterina, for once in your short life, stop thinking about work and relax," said James with a flat look.

"James, the last time I did that, I drank too much wine and got... weird."

James winced. "Eh... that's true. There's not much for it though, since we only brought the essentials. You could always check the internet. Wait..."

"That's it then, I'm finished," said Caterina mournfully, flopping backwards with a sigh. "This is going to be the most boring thing ever."

It was exactly as she predicted, and after pestering the pilot with enough questions about boats to sink one, she managed to get James to show her a movie he'd saved on his laptop.

"This is called 'Pulp Fiction'," he said, turning the computer so Caterina could see. "I've seen it at least a dozen times and it's always been good. You okay down here?"

"You're not going to watch?" asked Caterina, looking up as a blonde man in a hawaiian shirt began to go on about something being too dangerous.

"It's sunny outside and I intend to enjoy it," said James, putting his sunglasses back on. "Besides, I need to get a tan."

"But-!" Caterina tapped the space bar and paused the movie. "But James! Movie! They're not as fun when you're alone!"

"Caterina, the only reason you think that is because I told you," James replied. "Seriously, you'll enjoy it just as much alone as if I was with you. Probably more so, because I've started saying the lines along with the characters, which is never good for a first timer."

Caterina frowned but conceded the point. "Fine, I'll watch it alone. You go do your thing in the sun; I'll tell you what I think later."

James nodded and turned to leave. "Have fun."

(}{-}{)

An hour later, Caterina flopped onto her stomach beside James, burying her head in her arms.

"What's wrong?" asked James, not shifting from his position.

"They just stabbed a lady in the chest with a giant needle. Somehow this keeps her from dying due to cocaine overdose."

"And?"

"It's stupid!" groaned Caterina, rolling over and covering her eyes with an arm. "That doesn't actually do anything!"

"Yes, well, Mr. Tarantino isn't well known for being realistic, he's well known for being stupid but entertaining," replied James. "I suppose that I enjoyed it because it broke away from the reality I live in while still treating it realistically."

"...that doesn't make any sense," said Caterina, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Nothing appeared out of the ether.

"No, I suppose not," shrugged James, "but then again, quoting the Bible during a hit doesn't make much sense either."

"...I still don't really like it," said Caterina, pushing herself back up into a sitting position, "but maybe I'll go and finish it later. What can you tell me about our friends?"

"We're supposed to be picking up Marisa and Elio Alboreto, the Agency's newest fratello," said James, lower his voice and shifting an arm to make various hand gestures that made him appear to be talking about the movie. "Elio's older than me but still young enough to do combat operations. He's been in the SAS and the Security Service in the past, then retired. He's apparently good friends with Chief Lorenzo, and I've heard rumors that Elio and the Defense Minister have a past together. Last I heard he was happily retired as a bartender, but apparently something or somebody managed to get him out of retirement."

"And Marisa?" asked Caterina, lowering her voice while shifting to turn her back to the wheelhouse.

"Eleven years old and on the lightest dosage of conditioning imaginable," said James with a grimace. "She'll be a handful, if nothing else. As you probably figured out, she's going to be our diving specialist." James tactfully left out how there had been a previous attempt with a standard dose that had died horrifically when she'd tried to pass through one hundred feet. "They've been training for the last few months, and now that she's been declared ready for duty, we're going to go pick them up."

"Sounds like a simple milk run," sighed Caterina. "We go down, they get in a dinghy, we pick them up, we go home."

"That's the plan," said James with a nod. "We'll probably want to do it under cover of darkness to get all of their equipment, but other than that it should be easy."

Caterina lay back and rolled onto her stomach again. The sound of the motors churning the water rumbled up through the deck to her ears. The wind rustled her hair, tugging at it playfully as if looking to run its fingers through the strands. She was still bored, and it looked like the mission, while relaxing, was going to be boring as well. "Do you know when we'll be at Isola del Giglio?"

"Oh it'll be awhile," said James, lifting his hand to check his watch. "We can only manage about twenty three miles an hour, so we won't get there until oh... 11:00 PM, I think."

Caterina let out a cross between a wail and a groan and face-planted into the mat. "Kill me now, before the boredom takes me..."

(}{-}{)

The fratello finally glimpsed the light of Isola del Giglio's lighthouse at 22:43. At 23:17, the yacht swung around the end of Isola del Giglio and came within sight of the Social Welfare Agency's Aquatic and High Altitude Environments Physiological Research Laboratory. Colloquially called the Dive Center, the AAAEF's civilian mission was very clear. It was located on the coast, in a sheltered cove that made it difficult for prying eyes to see, with a series of loading docks that allowed the Dive Center to take delivery of goods without having to pass them through more than one checkpoint. The rise of a Lega Nord mayor had, unfortunately, put a stop to these deliveries, but until now, the Dive Center had been able to operate mostly unmolested.

Unfortunately, this was no longer the case.

"Well, that's not going to be fun," said James, peering through the ship's binoculars at the many sets of running lights in place before the Dive Center's loading docks. He had a t-shirt and light jacket on, but hadn't changed out of his swimwear. "I don't imagine we're going to make it through that."

"If you want me to try and run patrol boats, you're going to have to pay me enough money to cover a new identity and a new boat," replied the pilot, smoking a cigarette.

"That won't be necessary, we'll figure something out," said James, picking up his own from an ashtray. "Caterina, what can you tell me?"

"Well, it's not pretty," she said, staring unhappily at SigmaFind's results. She was wearing a long sleeved shirt and pants to ward off the chill, and had pulled her hair back up when they'd sighted the lighthouse.

"What do you see?"

"There are four patrol boats, each with a seven man crew," reported Caterina, taking a deep breath in order to focus and treat the situation objectively. "About a platoon of Polizia are parked tightly around the main entrance with regular patrols around the perimeter. I estimate that nothing is going to get out of that compound."

"Don't underestimate our friends," cautioned James. "They've got at least a decade of experience running gauntlets like this."

"Still, it won't be easy," said Caterina, turning her laptop around for James to see. "The patrol boats are space evenly across the cove, turned broadside to the facility. It's just enough to cover the entire space, and they'll see anyone trying to get out via the loading docks."

"We'll have to try and distract them then," said James with a grimace. "Do you think we could pull off sidling by carelessly?"

"That could work, but I don't think it's got enough of a guarantee," said Caterina, tapping a finger against the table. "Ideally, we'd have some sort of fire or explosion."

"You mean like Zhuge Liang and his reed boats?" asked James. "That was a fictional account, you know, and even if it weren't, we'd need time to prepare, and I'm not convinced the Polizia won't just storm the building."

"Yes, but it'd be better than driving up and exposing ourselves," replied Caterina. "It shouldn't be too difficult. First, we would buy a couple dozen cans of gasoline and an inflatable dinghy at Giglio Porto. Then we would row it out, pour the gasoline into the bottom, and throw a flare in after bailing out. The flare should light the petrol distracting the patrol boats and letting our friends slip away undetected."

"You're mad," said the pilot, giving Caterina an incredulous look before turning to James. "Tell her she's mad."

"It's not a bad plan, with a few alterations," said James, leaning back against the wall and rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"You're both mad!" exclaimed the pilot, throwing his hands in the air. "When Vlad told me I was going to be doing a hush-hush job, he didn't say anything about fucking with the Polizia!"

"Here, have a hundred euros," said James, handing the man a wad of cash. "Just shut up and drive to Giglio Porto."

(}{-}{)

Elio Alboreto was the veteran of many covert operations. Now nearing on sixty, the still broad shouldered man could say with confidence that he was rarely surprised by anything anymore. So despite his hopes that they would not, in fact, be blockaded by the Polizia, he had been expecting it to happen for awhile. This explained why he had already figured out which documents to torch and which needed to be left to make the Dive Center seem like a legitimate research institution and was holding court, managing the destruction of said incriminating evidence.

"The director isn't going to just surrender the facility," one of the technicians said as he carried a great ream of paper towards the incinerator. "We're worth too much to let the Lega Nord get any of our information."

"It's not the data I'm worried about, it's our heads," said another, who was also carrying paper for the incinerator. "What's stopping them from arresting us, putting us on trial, and chucking us into a bin to rot?"

"That's why we're going to wipe the servers," said one of the data analysts with a sigh of frustration as they passed, breaking off from rapid typing to bury his face in his palms. "We've got a plan, alright? Shut up, please, so we can work!"

The two technicians scuttled away as Elio made his way over from his directing position in the center of the office. "Malfini. Do you need more coffee?" he asked, gesturing at the stressed man's empty mug.

"Please," sighed Malfini shakily, rubbing his brow. "This code just doesn't seem to want to work out, and who knows when the Polizia will just break in."

"Hey, I'm sure Rome's figured out something's wrong by now and is sending help," reassured Elio, his voice canted low and soothing. Raising his head, he looked around for the distinctive red pigtails of his cyborg, before sighting her and snapping his fingers. "Marisa, coffee run."

"Be right there!" Marisa called back from the incinerator, where she was loading huge masses of paper into the door with her enhanced strength. Finishing a load of papers, she went off to wash her hands.

"Thanks Elio," said Malfini, feeling more calm, leaning back in his chair and working the kinks out of his neck. "You make fantastic coffee, by the way. If we get out of this, I'm buying you a beer for that alone."

"Don't mention it," said Elio as Marisa scampered up with a carafe of coffee from the breakroom. "How much do we have left, Marisa?"

"We're almost out," said Marisa, holding the carafe up for inspection. "I think Signor Malfini's mug will be the last of this pot."

"Alright, I'll go and make the next batch," Elio said, making his way for the break room. "Malfini, do you need any help?"

"No, I'll be alright, Elio," said Malfini, smiling now as he inhaled the scent of the coffee as Marisa poured. The strong, fragrant beverage burbled as it hit the bottom of the mug. "Marisa's cute and all, but I think she'd be bored."

"Watching you type lines into a computer? Glllaaaaahhhh," said Marisa melodramatically, pretending to sway in nausea.

"Watch out," said Elio, reaching out quickly and tipping the coffee pot up before it spilled onto Malfini's desk. Placing a hand on Marisa's shoulder, he guided her out of the cubicle. "Come and help me make the next round."

The Dive Center was laid out so that the break room of each floor was in the middle of a field of offices. Large and spacious, it was about the size of a typical family dining room in the suburbs of Italy. Considering it was the only break room to be had on the floor, it needed to be in order to hold the lunches of, and make coffee for, several dozen people every day. In true Italian fashion, five kilo bags of beans had been placed under the cabinet, and an institutional sized burr grinder sat next to five similarly large, twin pot, coffee machines.

Apart from managing the destruction of evidence, Elio was unable to do much without provoking an actual assault on the building. One thing he could do, in the interest of the common good, was to employ his bar-tending skills and make endless pots of coffee. Marisa while happy at being able to help her handler make the fragrant beverage, was endlessly bored with the proceedings, much preferring to suit up and, as she put it, "go kick some butt".

"Do you remember how many beans I told you to grind last time?" asked Elio as the fratello arrived at the break room.

"Yes, Elio," said Marisa confidently, making her way to the opened bag they'd placed on the floor. "Three scoops per pot, then grind to medium fine, right?"

"That's right, good job," said Elio, directing a smile in Marisa's direction. "Do enough for..." Elio glanced at the machines. All five were running low. "...ten pots, please."

"Er, Elio, I'm not sure that'll fit," said Marisa doubtfully, looking from the coffee beans to the burr grinder.

"Do half for now then, then half later," said Elio as he collected the pots to rinse out. "I'll measure the water."

The two worked in silence, save for the sound of coffee beans hitting the inside of the grinder, followed soon after by the loud whirr of the machine turning beans to grounds, and the gurgle of water filling up reserves.

"I don't remember if I've told you, but we'll be moving to Rome soon," commented Elio as he filled the sixth machine with water.

"Really?!" said Marisa excitedly, popping upright and jerking the bin out of the grinder. The grounds leapt up in the bin, dispersing as they fell and scattering some of the grounds across Marisa's feet. "Ack!"

"Careful there, lass," said Elio with a chuckle as Marisa frowned, setting the coffee down and making her way gingerly to the broom closet, trailing small puffs of coffee grounds. "I take it you're excited?"

"Of course I am!" said Marisa as she opened the door, voice still tilting upwards despite her careful movements. "We started training months ago! I love it here, but I'm totally ready to get some real work!"

"Well you're certainly enthusiastic," said Elio as he finished filling the water and began spooning the grounds into filters. "I can finish up here if you want to go pack."

Marisa's eyebrows shot up and she vibrated in place anxiously. "Yes please!"

"Well go on then," said Elio indulgently, shooing his cyborg away as he took the broom from her to finish cleaning up. Marisa stayed just long enough to flash her handler a broad grin before dashing off with a whoop.

Elio waited until he was sure she was gone before letting his expression drop into a more worried frown. With luck, he and Marisa wouldn't need to try and sneak out of the compound, but it never hurt to be prepared...

(}{-}{)

"I still think this is insane," said the pilot as he carried a plastic jerrycan full of petrol into the back of the Renault Espace James had rented. This was now their seventh, with James bringing up an eighth.

"If you have a better plan," said James with a grunt as he dropped his jerrycan in beside the pilot's. "I'm all ears."

"Besides, it's not like you'll need to do anything," said Caterina, walking up with an armful of crisps and energy drinks and laying them onto the back seat before climbing in. "Just stay on the boat and keep quiet about everything that happens."

"Er, about that," said James, shutting the door behind her and getting into the driver's seat. "You're not coming with me."

Caterina froze briefly before cocking her head sideways. "Is that wise?"

"I have more experience than you in aquatic infiltration," said James, twisting in his seat to face Caterina as the pilot got into the passenger side. "And we can make it more effective if we can time it extremely well."

"So you'll want me on my computer," said Caterina with a sigh, sitting back in her seat. "Good luck then."

James winced as he turned back around to drive. "Caterina, you really need to stop saying things like that."

Caterina started to roll her eyes, then recalled what happened right before the Palazzo Mission and winced. "Right, sorry. I'm sure you'll tip over the boat and ruin everything."

(}{-}{)

Marisa had packed far too quickly in her excitement and had neglected to remember that carting reams of paper around was extremely boring.

"Marisa, another stack for you!" called out a technician, waving at her from across the room.

"Coming!" Marisa shouted back from the incinerator, wiping her brow, the furnace was quite hot, and leaving behind a streak of soot. "It never ends..."

"Of course it doesn't, so keep moving," said Elio, causing Marisa to start. The handler was carrying a small stack himself. "Open the gate."

"Right," said Marisa with a nod, pulling down the gate and wincing away from the blast of heat. Elio quickly stuffed the paper in, allowing Marisa to shut the gate with a sigh. "Ugh. Why can't we just go shoot them again?"

"Because doing so would completely blow our cover," said Elio impatiently, folding his arms. "I've told you this before."

"But I'd make sure to get all of them!" said Marisa plaintively. "It'd be a lot more fun than carting paper back and forth!"

"Marisa! Stack!" the technician shouted again. "C'mon, we don't have all day!"

"I said I'm coming!" Marisa shouted back, stamping a foot impatiently before turning back to Elio. "Pleeeeeeease Elio? Can I just swim out and mess with the patrol boats then? Anything?"

"For the last time, Marisa, no!" growled Elio. "Doing anything directly to the Poli-"

*ring ring*

Marisa and Elio both looked at Elio's pocket in surprise.

*ring ring*

"Who could be calling you?" asked Marisa, cocking her head to one side in confusion.

"Who indeed?" asked Elio, pulling the phone out and accepting the call. "Hello?"

(}{-}{)

"Hello?"

Caterina, headphones over her ears with the baffling open, was sitting in the ship's saloon with her laptop open and running the applications that would allow her to interface with the Dive Center's network and the Polizia systems. At Elio's voice, Caterina flicked to her communications desktop and turned her mic on. "Elio Alboreto?"

"Yes."

"Good," said Caterina, flicking to SigmaFind and isolating the signal as friendly. "Let's get to business. My name's Caterina, and I'll be part of your backup this evening."

(}{-}{)

"That's good to hear," said Elio, breaking into a pleased smile as Marisa looked on. "Where's your handler?"

"He's taking care of some other things," answered Caterina ambiguously. Elio could hear the sound of keys being typed rapidly in the background. "What's your situation?"

"Well, we're trying to get through the hard copies as quickly as possible, but it's slow going," said Elio, glancing back at the group of technicians that had broken up what was supposed to be Marisa's stack and were now making their way to the incinerator. "We're also trying to figure out how to scrub the servers, but we don't have any software that can do it cleanly enough to be untraceable."

"Don't worry about that, I'm accessing the network now and can help take care of it," said Caterina, tearing through several layers of security quickly. "We have a plan to get you and Marisa out of the Dive Center. Is your dive equipment pre-prepped?"

"Somewhat, in order to streamline training missions," replied Elio, tapping on Marisa's shoulder and beckoning for her to follow him. "I take it we'll be needing it?"

"Yes, the plan is to get you out of the Dive Center via the waterway," began Caterina as she scrolled rapidly through the code already created to scrub the servers. "James, my handler, is setting up the distraction we'll need, but you two need to be suited up to take advantage of it quickly. Can you give me the phone number of somebody who's working on the code right now?"

"Malfini, what's your telephone number?" asked Elio as he passed the man's desk.

"Er, 3708904," said Malfini. "What-?"

"3708904," Elio relayed to Caterina.

"Thanks," she said shortly, typing in the number. Immediately thereafter, Malfini's phone rang.

"Er, hello?" he asked. "Can this wait? I-"

"Hello, my name is Caterina and I'll be your backup for the evening," said Caterina, connected to both Elio and Malfini simultaneously. "This connection is secure so we can discuss freely. Elio, I need you and Marisa to go suit up and be prepared to move. Feel free to hang up, but call me back when you're ready. Malfini, I've been looking at the code you guys have..."

Elio turned his phone off and paused briefly to consider what had just happened.

"Er, Elio, was that... a cyborg?" asked Marisa, not quite sure what to make of what had transpired. She thought about it briefly before her eyebrows shot up in indignation. "Was she giving you orders?!"

"Yes, it was," said Elio, compartmentalizing that knowledge for later consideration. "And never mind that, we'll worry about it later. She sounds like she's following a plan laid out by her handler, so let's get to it."

"But she's a cyborg! She's not allowed to give orders to you!" protested Marisa, coming to a halt in shock. She'd never even conceived of such a thing being possible.

"She is if her handler is able to help us out," said Elio, placing a firm grip on Marisa's shoulder and pulling her along out of her funk. "Now come on, we need to be ready."

(}{-}{)

James considered, in hindsight, that perhaps it would have been wise to bring along his cyborg for this part of the mission.

Paddling quietly and swiftly had never been a difficulty for him. Force Recon drilled that particular infiltration method into you hard enough that a nuclear detonation was unlikely to dislodge it. The problem was that it was usually done with a team of eight Marines, not a single, aging operative in swim trunks.

"James, how are you doing?" asked Caterina over their radio. "I track your position as 89 meters distant from the boat, do you need a break?"

"No, I'll be fine," breathed James, crouched low in the middle of the dinghy and surrounded by the jerrycans and several quart bottles of motor oil. A signal flare lay by his side as he progressed silently through the water, buffeted though he was by the waves. "I can see the running lights from here, do you have a fix on their watch?"

"There's one man at the stern and bow of each boat," reported Caterina. "I can't tell which way they're facing, but it's most likely the cove."

"Good, that should make approach easier. Tell me when I get to within thirty meters."

"What do you want me to do with their communications?" asked Caterina. "I have SigInterdict ready to go."

"Prime it for screech burst, duration 3 seconds," ordered James, pausing briefly to wipe a bead of sweat out of his eye before continuing forward, "followed by a broad spectrum noise jam until I give you the order to stop."

"Polizia and patrol boats?"

"Both, yes."

"Roger wilco," said Caterina. "I'll have a pot of tea for you when you get back."

James smiled. Hot tea after a long, cold swim would be good. "Understood, out for now."

(}{-}{)

*ring ring*

Caterina flicked to her comm board. Elio was calling. "Elio. Ready to go?"

Elio and Marisa had spent the last thirty minutes moving as quickly as they could to store their mission equipment and suit up for combat. Both were in their wetsuits, critical equipment was stored in drybags, and their tanks had been topped off. Much was being left behind, but it was nothing that couldn't be replaced

"We're ready to go as soon as we're clear," said Elio, sitting on the locker room bench with with fins at his side. Marisa sat next to him, checking her Aeris CompuMask HUD to make sure it was functioning accurately. "What's the signal?"

"You'll see a bright flash out on the water," said Caterina, smiling slightly. "I don't think you'll be able to miss 160 liters of petrol lighting up."

Marisa's ear twitched and she looked up sharply. "Did she just say-?"

"-one hundred and sixty liters of petrol?" asked Elio in disbelief. "Are you insane?"

"No," replied Caterina without inflection. "Prepare to dash into the water as soon as you see the flash."

Elio and Marisa looked at each other, the first in shock and the other in excitement. Rolling his eyes, Elio returned to the call. "Well one of us will find this entertaining, at least. Roger wilco on waiting for 160 liters of fire. Where are we going afterwards?"

"Swim straight out for one hundred meters, then turn right and and move one hundred and seventy-three meters. Come up and look for a Princess V42, we're the only one around."

"Understood," said Elio. Two hundred and seventy three meters wasn't very far, but in the dark, and without running lights, it was more than enough to disguise a boat, especially if parked out of view. "Barring complications, we'll see you in about five minutes."

"Understood, see you in five after signal. Caterina out."

(}{-}{)

"James, you're entering the thirty meter ring... now."

"Understood, I'll need to turn my radio off for the next bit," answered James, ceasing his paddling. "After this, wait five minutes and fire the feedback burst and jamming."

"Understood," said Caterina calmly, squashing the bloom of worry that sprung up in her chest. "See you soon."

James clicked his radio off before tying the flare to the loop of his swim suit, slipping off the end of the dinghy quietly, and beginning to uncap the jerrycans. The dinghy was just wide enough for two jerrycans to lay facing each other, and by laying the bottles of motor oil perpendicularly on top of them, James was able to create a massive slick of propellant while keeping some of it reserved in the containers. The heat of combustion would burn through the plastic and allow fuel to continue being fed to the conflagration, rather than allowing the entire slick to go up at once.

That completed, and after making sure his flare was secure, James began to push the dinghy forward, paddling in long, smooth strokes to ensure he wasn't spotted. This was the much harder part of the mission, as he no longer had nearly as much control as he did with a paddle and the craft kept wanting to slide off course. Still, after five minutes of struggling, James could make out the flicker of cigarettes as the smoke was drawn in. As he watched, the flickers jerked in surprise, signaling the near perfect synchronization between his motion and Caterina's electronic assault. This was it then.

Letting go of the dinghy, James stroked back five feet and raised the flare. He needed to do this accurately, then dive to avoid the blast of fire as the gasoline ignited from the immensely hot flare. Slowing his breathing, he cocked his arm back with one hand on the cap and the other around the flare's body. One deep breath...

(}{-}{)

Elio and Marisa were crouched at the doorway from the locker rooms to the loading docks, waiting silently for their signal, facemasks and air tanks on but flippers off. Their weight belts and buoyancy compensators had been calibrated roughly, pending further adjustment after they'd made it out to the water. That, and night diving in general, had been covered in their training, and neither member of the fratello was particularly nervous.

"Elio, my knees are starting to ache," Marisa complained quietly.

"Marisa, you are eleven, and I am fifty five," answered Elio with a quiet sigh. "If your knees are starting to ache, imagine how long my have been."

Marisa scowled but fell silent. Swimming was something she could do easily, but she recognized that few could match her in the water. This James person was probably doing his best, but it didn't make her any less impatient to get-

A brief flash, less than one hundred meters away, then a brilliant burst of fire as the dinghy went up. Immediately, Elio and Marisa were up and running, sprinting to the water before dropping to their knees and sliding in quietly, leaving behind ripples disproportionately small to their size. Seconds later, the clap of displaced air reached the empty doorway as the fratello, now underwater, donned their flippers began swimming for the mouth of the cove. Initially slightly positively buoyant, they vented a little air from their regulators and began diving as they exited the cove. Even under water, they could see the light of the fire as they passed it, the furiously burning ball of flame sending just enough light downwards to cast the semblance of a shadow of the dinghy across the sand on the bottom of the cove. Very little light was otherwise visible, and the fratello swam on, keeping oriented via dimly glowing compass faces clipped onto their air tank harnesses and staying at five meters below the surface to avoid the possibility of any boats running them over without needing to decompress on the way back up.

As they swam, Marisa and Elio kept an eye on their dive watches. Elio's was strapped to his wrist, and Marisa has an integrated watch in her CompuMask. After a minute's swimming, Marisa reached out and tapped her handler on the shoulder. In the complete darkness, she had to guess based on the location of his compass's gentle glow, but her hand made contact successfully. The pair stopped and took a bearing, then turned ninety degrees right and made their way forward at a slight ascent, continuing upwards to surface with a quiet splash.

The view overhead, with few lights pollute it, was spectacular. The night was not truly dark, for on a clear night such as this, the light of the stars created the dimmest of backdrops that, nevertheless, illuminated the world with the lightest of touches. Far over head, the dust and gas of the distant reaches of space glowed in the light of hundreds of stars, scattering their beauty throughout the sky.

"Wow," said Marisa quietly, letting her regulator hang as she looked up. "It's so pretty."

"It never fails to be beautiful," agreed Elio. Leaving his cyborg enraptured in the sky, Elio looked around for anything resembling a luxury yacht.

"Marisa," ventured Elio after a moment's fruitless searching. "Can you see any yachts?"

Marisa blinked and looked about, sweeping the water for anything man made. But with the island on her right, it was difficult to see if there might be something there. "I can't see anything Elio. Maybe we went out too far and need to be closer to shore?"

"That might be it."

The fratello began to slowly make their way towards Isola del Giglio, keeping an eye out for any vehicles that might be traveling about. But by now, it was nearly 0130, and just about anyone sane was out of the water, and it seemed a safe bet that they would be perfectly fine.

Unexpectedly, a red S appeared to their left, signaled with apparently a flashlight. This was followed by a W, then an A. Marisa, who happened to be looking in that direction, spotted it first.

"Elio, I think that's our ride," said Marisa brightly, tapping her handler on the shoulder and pointing. "What do you think?"

"I agree, let's go," said Elio turning to swim towards it as the signaler repeated the symbols. "I'm getting cold."

"Do you want me to warm you up?" asked Marisa, sliding closer in the water. "My internal heaters should be fine for a few minutes of extra heat."

"No, I'll be fine," said Elio. Marisa couldn't see it, but she could hear Elio's appreciation of the gesture. "Besides, it's only about twenty meters, we can get there in less than a minute."

Marisa squinted at the W in progress. "Mmm... "

"What, doubting your old handler?" asked Elio, smiling slightly as he swam.

"No, of course not!" said Marisa with a frantic edge to her voice. "You'd never make-"

"Calm down, Marisa, I was only joking," said Elio with a laugh. "We're almost done, so we can lighten up a bit."

Marisa pouted. "That was mean, Elio."

"Only a little, and you have to admit that it was pretty funny."

Slowly, Marisa's pout turned into a smile as the pair breast-stroked nearer to the boat. "I guess."

Soon the two were within whispering distance of the boat.

"Ahoy there!" whispered James, wearing a bathrobe and holding a mug of tea in his left hand, the flashlight, shining down at the diving fratello, in his right. "Can you guys see by this?"

"Good enough, thanks," said Elio as they reached the transom, where the swimming ladder had been deployed. "I take it that you're James?"

"That's right," said James, drinking a sip of tea. "You need any help?"

"No, we're good," said Elio, pushing a dry bag onto the transom before pulling himself up. James dodged backwards quickly, stepping up onto the stairs as a wave of water accompanied the old salt. "Marisa, hand me the dry bags."

"Here," said Marisa, dragging one of the bags up and gently tossing it. Elio caught it with a grunt.

"I said 'hand', Marisa," he said exasperatedly, sliding it off to the side.

"Sorry," said Marisa sheepishly, sliding the third, and final, dry bag onto the transom before hauling herself out. "I forgot my toss is your throw."

"Don't worry about it, I'm alright, just try and remember in the future," said Elio, unfastening his flippers and setting them aside. "James, where can I leave these?"

"The plan is to towel off the dry bags and leave them in your accommodations for the night while your dive equipment gets stacked up in the wheelhouse," said James, gesturing with his flashlight. "You'll probably want to get somewhat toweled off so as to go get changed downstairs, so we brought some towels out on the bathing platform."

"Thanks, that'll do nicely," said Elio, unstrapping his air tank and associated equipment. "Come on, Marisa, let's get the dive gear up first and come back for the dry bags."

(}{-}{)

After stowing the dive gear, Elio and Marisa, followed by James, descended the steps into the saloon of the yacht with their dry bags as the pilot slowly guided them farther away from the Dive Center. The floor was made of some sort of beige-colored molded polymer, blending tastefully into similarly colored upholstery and wood surfaces. Avonite false stone was used as for the counter in the kitchen behind them, where a kettle full of water was coming slowly to a boil. It all looked quite comfortable, if somewhat bland. Marisa decided it was passable as furnishings went, but she would have decorated with more orange.

"Hello," said briefly Caterina as they came in, her fingers dancing rapidly across her keyboard. She was still connected to Malfini and the data analysts who were working on wiping the servers, and paid them very little heed. "Malfini, how are you coming with the secondary backup? ...Alright, we need someone to edit the time stamps on that, can you help me with..."

"It's probably best we leave her to it," said James quietly. "There are two berths, one with two beds and one with only one. Do you want to room by fratello or with handlers and cyborgs?"

"Handlers and cyborgs," said Elio, shifting his dry bag slightly. "Handlers in the two beds room and cyborgs share a bed."

"Sounds reasonable," said James. "Marisa?"

Marisa shrugged. She wasn't old enough to find it irksome yet. "As long as Caterina doesn't end up using me as a hugging pillow or something, I'm was okay with it."

"Alright then. Elio, our room will be through this door," said James, gesturing to their left. "There should be enough room to store your bag in the corner. Marisa, you and Caterina will be over here-" James nodded at a door to their right "-where there's a lot more space. You're lucky, that's the owner's berth."

"What about the pilot?" asked Elio, glancing up through the ceiling at where he knew the helm to be. "I'd prefer to take care of him sooner rather than later."

"Don't worry about that, he's trustworthy," said James. "No muss and no fuss as long as he gets paid, and I've given him a bonus on top of that, so we're good."

Elio gave him a long look. "...I find that difficult to believe."

"...We'll talk about it later," said James with a sigh as the kettle began to whistle. Caterina twitched. "Here, let me brew some tea while you two take care of your things."

Elio and Marisa split up, carrying their respective dry bags with them, while James shut off the stove. Behind him, he heard a quiet sigh from Caterina, the only indication that the high pitched noise had been bothering her. The glass tea/coffee pot that the fratello had found in the cupboards was cleaned out, the bags of not-terribly-great-but-still-passable tea thrown out a tin of tea pulled down. A sack of coffee, presumably of much higher quality, was in the same cupboard.

The first step to proper tea, according to the Triad Boss he had met in Shanghai, was to warm the vessels. Setting the pot down on the counter, James first poured water directly in through the top, filling the pot only a third of the way. This done, he placed the kettle back on the stove with a quiet tink of metal on metal and used his right hand to grip the handle, swirling the water about within the pot while his left hand kept the lid in as he rotated. Satisfied, James pulled a cup down from another cupboard and poured the hot water into the cup, making sure to pull the pot back as he did so to create a pleasant burbling noise as he poured. The cup soon filled, and James poured the rest of the hot water into the sink, then followed it with the cup's contents.

Now satisfied that he had completed the first step, James moved on to applying the actual tea. Two tea bags for a single pot was sufficient, and after snipping the strings off, James poured in the hot water. The other thing the Triad Boss has told James was to never, ever pour hot water directly onto tea leaves of any sort. A wry smile flitted across James' face as he thought back to younger days, when he was still relatively new to the business. The Triad Boss had smacked James' hand with a fan after he had gone to pour directly over some very high quality Dragon Well green tea. Remembering the sting of bamboo on skin well, James made sure to tilt the pot and pour along the sides, the water following the sides of the pot in a quiet rush, snatching the tea bags along with it and making it all spin in swift circles as the water filled its container.

Water now poured, James placed the lid back in and brought the pot and the cup to the table, where Caterina was now discussing various encryption methods that could be used. Quietly, so as not to disturb her, James set the cup and pot beside her and left for the bedroom he and Elio would be using.

(}{-}{)

Caterina finally was able to sign off sometime around four in the morning. It had been hard and brutal work, but in the end, she and the analysts in the Dive Center had managed to cobble together an algorithm, with some proprietary software borrowed from James, that securely encrypted the servers of the Dive Center and burst transmitted a copy to Rome. Now it was just a question of killing all of the data with a shredder worm, and that was easy enough for one of James' standby executables. Exhausted, Caterina had made sure everything was going smoothly before going to bed in a haze of exhaustion.

In the interim between getting Caterina tea and going to sleep, James had managed to explain things to Elio. The long and convoluted chain of events had started in the 80s, but it had only taken an hour to get through it all. Elio was old and experienced, and could tell that James was old and experienced as well. Perhaps not as much as Elio, but it was a safe bet that James knew what he was doing. If he thought the pilot could be trusted to keep quiet, then Elio, after the details James had provided, was willing to accept it.

Marisa had gone to sleep soon after she had showered and hung her wetsuit up to dry. It had been part of the typical routine after a training run, and despite the great burst of flame, Marisa still wasn't all that satisfied. She hadn't been allowed to pause and appreciate the fire, after all, and while swimming had been fun, it still lacked the butt kicking that she so wanted. At first, lying on the bed in her pajamas, it has seemed impossible for sleep to come. The next thing she knew, it was nearly noon and she was absolutely starving.

The bedroom was large and oval in shape, with the double bed situated precisely in the middle and taking up most of the space. It wasn't precisely a large room, but considering that it was a very comfortable bed, Marisa was willing to forgive it this oversight. Overhead, she could see the sun shining through the shades that covered the deck hatch.

With a yawn, Marisa stretched and sat up, slouching forward to lean on her knees as she blinked her way to full wakefulness. A movement to her left made her start briefly before she remembered that she was supposed to be sharing the room with Caterina. Marisa turned to see the older cyborg lying in her day clothes and curled slightly for warmth, her messenger bag carefully laid on the dressing table. She'd apparently never even made it under the covers.

Wanting to let Caterina sleep, Marisa tried to slip out quietly. Moving gingerly, she placed her feet on the carpeted floor and lifted herself off of the bed, easing the tension in the springs slowly enough to make the transition to equilibrium smooth and gentle.

Unfortunately, the springs creaked.

In a flash, Caterina was up and moving, springing away from the sound like a cat startled by a loud noise. Her eyes flashed across the room, scanning for threats as she landed in a crouch, hands feeling for any weapon she could use in self defense.

Marisa, meanwhile, had startled at the sudden movement and thrown herself sideways into a roll, tumbling to the carpet and coming upright in a crouch, body braced for action. Slowly, she peeked over the edge of the mattress, her bright red hair causing Caterina's attention to lock on to the slowly rising head.

The two made eye contact.

After a moment, Caterina broke into laughter at the situation.

"Oh man, I needed that," she said, pulling her hair tie out and shaking her hair loose. "What time is it?"

"I think it's noon," said Marisa sheepishly, standing up properly. "I'm sorry for waking you."

"It's fine," said Caterina, tying her hair back low on her head. "Nngh. I didn't really get a good night's sleep. Sorry about..." Caterina waved a hand vaguely. "..that."

"It's okay," said Marisa, scratching the back of her head awkwardly. "Er, my name is-"

"Marisa, right?" asked Caterina, leaning back on the dressing table. "Elio's cyborg?"

"That's right!" said Marisa with a nod, rocking back and forth on her heels with a cheery grin. "I think I heard you over the phone, you're Caterina, right?"

"Yep," said Caterina, nodding back at Marisa. "Cyborg of Lieutenant James Spettro, communications and electronics specialization."

Marisa cocked her head. "Isn't 'Spettro' just another word for 'Ghost'?"

"I think he's using an alias," said Caterina with a shrug.

Marisa frowned but didn't say anything. It would bother her if she didn't know Elio's real name, but maybe Caterina was conditioned differently.

"Fair enough," said Marisa after a moment. "I'm hungry. Do you want to get any food?"

"We should brush our teeth first," said Caterina with a yawn.

(}{-}{)

The dilemma that currently faced the two girls was that there were only one dozen eggs in the yacht's refrigerator, which had to be split between five people. That meant a maximum of two eggs per person. There was also half a kilo of grapes on the counter, a liter of cream, a pot of honey, a two kilo sack of flour, and a half empty box of sugar in the cabinet with the tea and coffee.

"Considering that he's not to know about what we are, we can't really blame the pilot for not buying much," said Caterina with a sigh as she shut the refrigerator door.

"Well then what now?" asked Marisa, looking extremely put out at the counter beside Caterina. "Our handlers are still asleep, and it's not like we can just walk down to the corner cafe with a few euros."

"We're not very far from Porto Giglio or Monte Argentario," said Caterina after a moment's thought. "I'm sure that as long as we leave enough behind for our handlers, we can last long enough to wait for a bigger breakfast later."

Marisa made an unhappy moue. "Fine... but we'd better get there soon."

"Are you going to fall over catatonic?" asked Caterina, arching an eyebrow. "You'll be fine. Besides, James once made me pancakes and they fill you up like nothing else."

"What's a pancake?" asked Marisa, tilting her head.

Caterina grinned. "Let me show you."

(}{-}{)

It had taken half an hour of careful work, but both cyborgs had managed to fry up pancakes without utterly destroying the kitchen. It had only taken four eggs, two cups of flour, and half a cup of cream to make a batter that resembled the consistency that Caterina remembered James making. The result had been a rather large stack of not-really-pancakes that both cyborgs were methodically making their way through.

"These are really, really good, Caterina," said Marisa around a mouthful of pancake. "Seriously."

"Thanks," said Caterina, drizzling honey over the surface of her... whatever-it-was and cut a wedge off. The material was dense and springy, but quite good, if slightly bland. Marisa didn't seem to mind though. "Do you have any ideas about what to do later?"

Marisa's eyes went wide as a field of infinite possibility presented itself to her. Staring over Caterina's head, the red headed ball of energy went uncharacteristically silent. Caterina did not realize something was amiss until she looked up from cutting a second wedge of fried-stuff and caught sight of a disturbing sparkle in Marisa's eyes.

"Marisa... what are you thinking about?" asked Caterina cautiously.

"You know," said Marisa, a grin beginning to stretch across her face, "this yacht can go very fast."

"Yes...?" Caterina laid her utensils down in case she needed to bolt.

Marisa looked down and made eye contact with Caterina. The disturbing sparkle had now enveloped Marisa's eyes, making the rest of the world fade away as Caterina found herself compelled to stare deep into that great, endless abyss. All other sound faded as Marisa opened her mouth and uttered words of great weight and power: "We should hitch your dinghy to the back and ride it like a giant water tube!"

The spell broke.

"No!" said Caterina, actually bolting out of her seat in horror. "Apart from waking up everyone for a joy ride, you'd destroy the dinghy!"

"No we wouldn't!" argued Marisa, still grinning like a cat from western England. "The dinghy's designed for rough water, right? It'll be fine!"

"But you're not- the way you-," spluttered Caterina, before finally: "Engineering doesn't work that way!"

"Sure it does!" replied Marisa, crossing her arms with confidence. "You're supposed to put tolerances in, right?"

"You don't intentionally push those envelopes!" said Caterina exasperatedly. "That's just asking for disaster!"

"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" asked Marisa rhetorically, rolling her eyes. "I mean, maybe-"

"Whatever it is, it is guaranteed to happen because you just said that," said Caterina with a groan, planting her face into her palms. "Never, ever say that out loud."

Marisa made an incredulous expression. "No way. You're superstitious? Really?"

"It's not superstition if it keeps happening," said Caterina, pointing a finger authoritatively. "And besides, I'm older so I'm right."

"That doesn't mean anything!" said Marisa hotly, hopping up in agitation. "Just because you're technically two years older-"

"I meant by activation date," said Caterina, folding her arms. "Every time I've been on a mission, any time someone says that line, things go bad."

Marisa actually paused for the first time in her recent life, before steam rolling on. "Yeah, but-"

"No."

"You didn't-"

"No."

"I'll bet-"

"No."

"Hah! I knew it!" said Marisa triumphantly, pointing a finger of victory. "You HAVE wet the bed!"

"What? No!"

"You admitted it!"

"No I didn't, you tricked me!"

"Serves you right for cutting me off every sentence," said Marisa with a satisfied smile.

"I- you- nrraaagh!" Caterina felt the sudden urge to strangle the little red head, but restrained it. "Look, the point is that you will not be water-tubing with a dinghy."

"But-!"

"No." Caterina mustered up the best glare of quelling she could. It seemed to work, temporarily at least.

"Fine," said Marisa with an unhappy but defiant expression. "Then what would you do instead?"

Caterina considered her options. Before her was an eleven year old of some considerable energy and a short attention span. In such situations, action and explosions were probably her most useful weapons.

"What do you know of Batman?" asked Caterina, raising an eyebrow.

"Batman? Who's that?" asked Marisa.

It was now time for Caterina to obtain a cheshire grin. "Marisa, my dear, this will be an experience you will never forget."

(}{-}{)

"And then, when Batman says 'LET HER GO', the Joker just drops the girl out the window!" said Marisa, narrating the scene with her hands as the fratelli walked down 93 Curso in Porto Santo Stefano towards what was apparently a popular local snack bar. Elio was apparently used to the excited chatter of the small cyborg, but James was only keeping sane by being able to take solace in the fact that Caterina now had to live with the girl.

"Why did you think showing an excitable child The Dark Knight was a good idea again?" asked James, suppressing a groan as he and Caterina trailed as far behind Elio and Marisa as was socially convenient.

"Because it would keep her entertained," said Caterina. "I figured it was better than letting her hitch the remaining dinghy up as an inner tube."

James raised first one, then the other eyebrow. "What, was she planning on jury-rigging the throttle too?"

"I don't even know," groaned Caterina, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. "I'm pretty sure we would have ended up breaking opsec though, so..."

James sighed, face going grim and tired. The view before him was sweet. Idyllic, even. There was the older man, dutifully playing along with his young charge, who was as excited as any her age would be about something new and fascinating. There too, was the clean and narrow streets of stereotypical Italy, with shops on the one side and the sea front on the other. Overhead, the sun shone brightly, as it did in all paintings of Italy sold in furnishing and decoration shops, with the blue sky bright and the vaguest of cloud cover to give contrast.

But really, if this cyborg before him was supposed to be a weapon to protect and preserve that image, would they succeed? Could they? Inventiveness and initiative were all well and good, but such reckless behavior could get people killed. The wrong people. The people that needed to stay alive.

"Caterina," said James with a sigh, placing a hand on his cyborg's shoulder. "I think we better start making some contingency plans."

(}{-}{)

Note: Elio and Marisa are copyright Prof. Voodoo and used with permission


	7. Southern Hospitality

The arrival of the Elio-Marisa Fratello heralded the beginning of concerted operations against the Southern Mafiosi.

With the level of chaos Italy was currently steeped in, the Social Welfare Agency had ended up being shuttled into two main roles as the various intelligence agencies began spooling up for an undercover war. The first role was clandestine assassination, already familiar for the fratelli of Section Two. The second was stronghold assault, a mission that the agency rarely undertook.

In contrast to the typical first-response or cell-sized take down mission that required the fratelli to report to their missions with guns concealed, stronghold assault missions were similar to typical GIS assault missions, but carried out at a much faster pace with little supporting infrastructure. Conducted in civilian clothes and out of safehouses rather than a specific building, the fratelli were tasked with appearing out of the blue, destroying everything, then melting back into the background. It was hard, considering the measures that needed to be taken in order to avoid being seen, but it was doable and rarely went badly.

"Charlie Team, wheel left and engage flanking hostiles," ordered Jean, staring unblinkingly into a computer screen with a blueprint of the warehouse they were attacking displayed in SigmaFind. James and Caterina sat nearby, calmly watching their screens and reporting what their screens displayed to Jean, who maintained a state of tense expectation. All three were in the administrative facility of a mafia warehouse, which held a large shipment of cocaine. Section Two was tasked first capturing, then burning, this shipment.

"Understood, repositioning," answered Giuseppe, as he and Henrietta pulled back from the crate they were sheltering behind and moved to attack the incoming mafiosi, James guiding them in carefully with updates. Across the way, Bernardo and Beatrice were maintaining suppressive fire on four mafiosi in the center of the warehouse. Silvia and Pierre had been attacking from the opposite side with Angelica and Marco, but the two fratelli had been split up by three more mafiosi armed with assault rifles.

"Bravo Team, be advised that Tangoes Assault are making a run for the doors," called Caterina.

"Copy that, should we pursue?" asked Pierre, glancing to the side in the direction of the door.

"Negative, displace and reinforce Delta Team," said Jean, referring to Bernardo and Beatrice. "Rico, cover the door."

"Yes sir."

"Understood," said Pierre with a nod. "Silvia, come along."

"Aww, but I wanted to splatter some goons!" whined Silvia, who nevertheless pulled back and followed her handler, reloading as they moved.

"You'll get your chance, mon chere," said Pierre. "Control, where do you want us?"

"Move four meters to your two o'lock and flank the enemy position," said Jean, watching the movement of the blips on his screen. "Rico, ready."

"Sir," whispered Rico, pulling her rifle up to her shoulder on the roof of the warehouse opposite. A moment later, movement. "Contact hostiles, engaging."

Inside, the successive cracks of Rico's rifle taking all three mafiosi out went unheard as the saw-like noise of Henrietta's P90 ripped through the air. The incoming mafiosi cursed and ducked, one of them falling in a spray of blood as his head disintegrated.

"One down!" said Henrietta.

"Good job," said Giuseppe, pulling his M12 submachine gun up to his shoulder and resting it atop a crate. "Go around left, I'll keep them busy."

"Yes sir!" said Henrietta with a determined nod, taking a moment to check her ammo before darting off.

An enemy head popped up, and Giuseppe sent a burst downrange as he waited, his bullets impacting just in front of it. Shortly afterwards came three rapid bursts of fire, accompanied by the three screams as the mafiosi died.

"Charlie Team to Control, three tangoes down," reported Giuseppe as Henrietta confirmed the deaths and swept the area for hidden hostiles.

"Understood," said Jean. "Delta and Bravo, move to secure remaining hostiles. Alfa, circulate through second and third story offices to secure the area."

A chorus of responses, summing up to affirmation. Jean closed his eyes and sighed, before opening them again to return his gaze to his screen. Pulling out a cigarette, Jean felt around his pockets looking for his lighter.

"Sir," said James, offering his own. Jean nodded in his direction and leaned over, passing the end of his cigarette over the flame and inhaling. "It looks like we've just about wrapped this one up."

"Make sure our vans will be at the extraction points," said Jean, "then get packed and ready to leave."

"Yes sir," said James with a nod. "Caterina?"

"Wilco," said Caterina as she shut her computer and packed it away. "Done."

Jean nearly looked over in surprise. "That's it? Check again."

"Sir, I am the only hardware necessary other than my laptop," said Caterina, voice taking on a formal tone. "I am fully packed."

Jean thought briefly, before rubbing at his eyes and muttering something along the lines of "It's too late in the day for this." Caterina considered that she probably wasn't supposed to hear that. Jean continued, at proper volume: "Alfa Team, report."

"No hostiles found," answered Marco. SigmaFind's main defect was that it couldn't distinguish non-moving enemy forces from stationary signal sources, necessitating a manual search for any hiding enemy. "I think we're clear, Jean."

"Very well. All units, fall back and prepare for extraction. James, what's the ETA?"

"Thirty seconds," said James, closing his own computer and sliding it into his bag. "Let's go."

Caterina was the first out the door. Checking both ways for any sign of life, she ran quickly to the door of James' Volkswagen Jetta, covering the handlers as they ran behind. The quiet tapping of shoes on asphalt made her wheel and raise her pistol, but it was only Rico, running towards Caterina and jumping over a crate with her rifle in hand.

"Get in the car," ordered Jean, running around the hood and taking the passenger seat. James got into the driver's side and started the engine as both cyborgs safed their weaponry and closed the doors to the backseat. Making sure to keep his acceleration even, James quietly slid the Jetta out of its hiding place and towards the gate.

"All teams, status on exfil?" asked Caterina as James concentrated on driving and Jean and Rico watched for anybody following them. Paranoia was always good.

"This is Marco, we have everyone in the van and the charges are planted," said Marco, sitting with Angelica in the second row of the van as it too sped towards the gates. With the van's three-seat-per-row configuration, the lucky fratelli were able to sit in pairs, but one team was always forced to sit in different rows. Up in front, Olga piloted while the double passenger seat was occupied by Giuse and Henrietta, the latter of which took the opportunity to snuggle up against her handler under the guise of giving Olga more space to drive.

"Meet at the secondary staging area," said Caterina, glancing at Jean, who nodded. "We'll split up there and make our own ways to the safe houses."

"Understood, we will see you then," said Marco. He turned to the front of the van. "You hear all that, Olga?"

"Yes," replied Olga, tapping an earpiece.

"Oh, right, I'll let you drive then," said Marco, sitting back and letting out a sigh.

"Are you all right?" asked Angelica, pulling the magazine out of her rifle.

Marco rubbed his eyes and nodded. "I'm fine, Angelica, just a little tired. It's been a long day."

"Ah," said Angelica. Something in her voice made Marco look over. The girl looked rather downcast as she fiddled with the sling of her rifle.

"What's wrong?" asked Marco.

"It's just that we were pinned down early and didn't get a chance to really kill anybody," sighed Angelica. "I just wish I could have gotten some kills, that's all."

Marco blanched but carefully schooled his expression before Angelica could notice. "Er, I'm sure you'll be able to soon. We have a lot of missions to get through, after all."

"Yeah, don't worry 'bout it, Angie," said Silvia, leaning up against the back of Angelica's seat with a grin. "It's just bad luck for you and Marco. You think I got a chance to use my shotty much today? It was all Pierre, Bernardo, and Beatrice for those last four."

"Ah, I guess you're right," said Angelica, a small smile growing across her face. "Thank you, Marco, Silvia."

"Don't mention it! We cyborgs gotta stick together, right?" asked Silvia rhetorically, returning to her seat and reclining with her hands behind her head.

Marco said nothing, but gripped Angelica's shoulder briefly. Behind them, the warehouse, rigged with explosives on a time delay, went up in flames.

|}-{|

The secondary staging area was a ways off from the Zona Industriale near Campobasso, and it would be twenty minutes nondescript driving before they could reach it. The Jetta's back armrest opened into the trunk, and, after breaking down their guns and doing a preliminary cleaning, Rico and Caterina had stowed their weaponry in the back. Their handlers continued to carry their weapons.

"Aren't you ever sad that you don't get to shoot?" Rico asked of Caterina as they drove through the darkness.

"What do you mean?" asked Caterina, yawning and pulling her hair ribbon loose to retie her hair.

"I mean, you're always in the back with your handler and Jean," said Rico. "I think if I never got a chance to shoot targets, I'd be very sad."

"Oh. Maybe we're just conditioned differently," Caterina said around her hair ribbon with a shrug as she gathered her hair. "And you know I can't really shoot."

Rico yawned as well, before saying: "Mmm.. but you've improved a lot."

Caterina shrugged again, hair tied and eyes beginning to droop. "Honestly, I'm not that bothered anymore. As long as you and the others keep fighting, I know James will be safe enough."

"Mmm... I guess..." mumbled Rico, before her eyes slid shut. "Maybe you'll-" the largest yawn yet made her pause "-get a chance to help out.. sometime..."

Caterina glanced over to see her sister cyborg slumped against the door, completely knocked out.

"Wow, we really crash badly, don't we?" Caterina asked rhetorically, propping her head up against the armrest. "James, do you need me for anything? I'd like to go to sleep too."

"Jean?" James asked. Jean shook his head. "No, we can manage on our own. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," said Caterina, before closing her eyes and drifting off as well.

James waited a moment before saying, quietly: "They really do crash badly from the adrenaline high. We should see if the techs can fix that."

"Put a note of it into your report," said Jean, folding his arms as he looked out the window. "We'll have to compensate in training in the meantime."

"Caffeine?"

"Maybe."

The handlers fell silent. Growing bored, James continued the conversation.

"Good mission today."

"We could have done better," said Jean. "Getting suppressed by three enemies that early was amateurish."

"Cyborg armor can't compensate for assault rifles yet," answered James, glancing over at his colleague.

"Their pain dampening can, and the medical center is equipped to deal with a flesh wound," said Jean.

"Maintenance costs are high enough without the cyborgs getting shot," said James with another glance.

Jean frowned unhappily but conceded the point with silence.

"Elio and I are willing to help plan," offered James. "Though Elio is probably better. I'm trained to do things the American way, and it's usually..."

"Brutish?"

"Too violent," said James with a flat look.

Jean allowed the tiniest of smiles slip past his stone mask. "Brutish," he said again, recrossing his arms. "I'll talk to Elio tomorrow."

"Alright."

James returned his view to the road. Both men kept their silence as they drove on.

|}-{|

"So how did things go last night?" asked Marisa, bouncing on her toes slightly as she, Elio, and Caterina made their way down the stairs of the condominium they were sharing. Both cyborgs had been up and about by ten, and with James still asleep from the late night mission, Elio had elected to shepherd the girls to the Dalla Pentola, a nearby restaurant that had proven to be far beyond anything the girls had ever eaten before.

"The news said there was a fire out in the Zona Industriale," said Elio, wearing a light colored dress shirt and pair of khaki slacks. Marisa was wearing a long sleeved shirt and plaid skirt, while Caterina was dressed in a long green shirt and jeans, with a black vest over top. Caterina left the house with a variety of things, following the pack-everything mentality that had been drilled into her by James. Her laptop was in its messenger bag, along with her knife, cellphone, headphones, and miscellaneous first aid. Marisa only had, at Elio's insistence, her cellphone, slung in a small handbag across her body. With no action anticipated, Elio had also gone weaponless, and privately considered that Caterina was probably overpacking for a trip down the street.

"Things were pretty good," said Caterina with a shrug. "Nothing really exciting happened. You would have been bored."

"But you lit a warehouse on-!"

"Shush!" scolded Elio. "Opsec, Marisa."

"It was an easy run," said Caterina as Marisa sheepishly nodded. "There was a little trouble in the beginning because we hadn't anticipated a squad of heavies."

"I'd have just wasted them," said Marisa confidently, miming the shots with an imaginary Kel-tec. "Bang- bang- bang!"

"Maybe," allowed Caterina, pushing open the door to the complex.

"Definitely!" said Marisa with a skip and a jump. "I'm a pretty good shot, after all!"

"Not at long range," countered Caterina as they neared one of their neighbors, an old lady named Flaviana. "You've never gotten a hit-ratio greater than .63. Good morning Signora!"

"More like afternoon, Caterina," said Flaviana with a chuckle, sitting on a bench in the small garden outside the condominium complex. "And hello Elio. Talking about your video games again?"

"Yup. I beat Marisa last night again," said Caterina, reaching over to give Marisa a noogie. The younger cyborg squawked in protest and wriggled away.

"You did not! I let you win that time!" Marisa argued, folding her arms and pouting. "And you cheated! Stupid camper."

"It's not cheating, it's good tactics," said Caterina airily.

"We were just going to Dalla Pentola, Flaviana," said Elio as the girls bickered in the background "Can we get you anything?"

"No, no, I've had my lunch already," said Flaviana, waving off the offer. "You three just have a good meal, understand? With those crazy mafiosi these days, who knows if that ristorante will be open tomorrow."

"That place's pasta is awesome though," said Marisa, breaking off her argument with Caterina about whether camping was cheating. "So those mafiosi would be idiots to close it. Then where'd they get such good pasta?"

"Maybe they have mothers or wives to make them good pasta," said Flaviana with a sigh. "I remember when that cafe opened, but young people these days are always rushing about. They have not time for a properly cooked meal these days."

"Don't you worry Signora, you can count on me to keep them in business!" said Marisa confidently, tapping herself on the chest with a fist. "I'll eat so much pasta that they'll pay off all their debts in one day!"

"Please don't," said Elio with a groan. "If you throw up, I'll have to clean it, and the carpet is brand new..."

"Didn't you hear what Signora Flaviana said?" asked Marisa mock-scoldingly. "We have to sit down and appreciate properly cooked meals, not rush through them!"

Signora Flaviana laughed and reached out to embrace them. "Oh Marisa, Caterina, you two wonderful girls. Don't ever grow up and become all serious like your fathers."

Caterina and Marisa put up with the contact with good grace, laughing along with the adults at the joke. "We'll do our best, Signora," reassured Caterina, before pulling away. "If you don't mind, we're really hungry, so we'll see you later!"

"Go, go, get food into your bellies!" said Flaviana with a happy smile, shooing the girls and their chaperone away. "I'll still be around when you come back"

Laughing, the girls waved goodbye and left through the metal gate of the small condominium complex, Elio keeping the energetic Marisa herded. The walked to the corner, made sure to look both ways, and progressed down the street, the girls keeping up happy chatter about the video games they had played while Elio looked on. It wasn't until they had walked a good twenty feet before their faces went somber.

"She means well, but every time Signora Flaviana says that..." sighed Marisa.

"Now's not the time to worry about that," said Elio, placing a comforting hand on both cyborg's shoulders. "Come on, I'm sure you two are hungry."

The smell of tomato sauce, cooking since four in the morning with great bundles of local herbs and great hunks of lamb and goat, cheered the girls some as the trio walked into the depressingly empty restaurant, its old wooden furniture devoid even of the few regulars that still came by. Few things in the world were as good as the pasta from Dalla Pentola, the girls had found. Always fresh, always cheap, and always delicious, it was a fortunate thing that James and Elio had Section Two expense accounts. Whenever they came down, the ended up paying a large tab, as between two hungry cyborgs, no less than five platters of pasta could disappear over the course of an hour. With such good food so nearby, it was no wonder that Marisa and Caterina visited at every possible opportunity.

"Benvenuto!" said the proprietor, Emilio, a rather fat and rather short man wearing an apron stained with tomato. "How are you today?"

"We're doing well, Signor Emilio," said Marisa, masking her unhappiness quickly. The restaurant had once seen glorious years, evidenced by the stark rectangles where paintings, now pawned or sold for money, had once hung. The restaurant didn't need any more sadness these days. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm doing fine," said Emilio, making a casual gesture. Caterina and Elio noted that he seemed stiffer than usual. "You three will have the usual, I suspect? Your usual seat is available."

"You know us too well," said Elio with a smile, leading the way to the nook in the corner that the two fratelli had taken up since arriving in Campobasso two weeks hence. It was placed next to the kitchen and across from the cash register, where a photograph of Emilio's deceased wife, a graceful looking woman with kind but aggressive eyes, stood in an elegant gold frame. Typically unwanted because of the noise of the kitchen, the fratelli had been drawn to the seat precisely because they could talk in low voices and not be heard by the other patrons.

"Bah, I know all my regular customers, and even some who aren't!" answered Emilio, wiping his hand on his apron. "I will have Benedetto bring out your food."

Marisa, Elio, and Caterina slid into their seats and only had to wait briefly before a boy Caterina's age wheeled an entire pot of sauce out of the kitchen, along with a large colander full of pasta, a wheel of cheese, a cut of lamb the size of Marisa's head, and a bottle of thinned grappa.

"Caterina, Marisa, Signor Elio! It's good to see you three," he said with a smile and a nod to each, an apron of his own over top jeans and a white dress shirt. He was Emilio's son, possessing his father's nose but his mother's eyes. "How're you?"

"We're doing good Benedetto," said Marisa, perking up at the frankly absurd amount of food and salivating slightly. "We'll be even better once you serve us that pasta you have."

"Actually, do you mind if I join you?" asked Benedetto as he used a pair of tongs to plate a bundle of pasta for Marisa and poured sauce over top of it. "I haven't taken my lunch break yet."

"He was waiting for you to show up!" called Emilio from the kitchen.

"No I wasn't!" Benedetto shouted back, despite having pulled the same stunt enough times for both girls and Elio to expect it. Marisa fell upon her pasta like a wolf upon a deer as Benedetto served Caterina her pasta. "And don't talk like that about Marisa! It's creepy!"

"Ah, but you wouldn't mind some alone time with Caterina, I imagine," said Emilio, poking his head out the kitchen door with a grin.

"Shut up!" Benedetto said with a bright blush, to the laughter of his father. "Sorry," he said, turning back to the girls and Elio, trying to appear dignified. "My father is... troublesome, sometimes."

Caterina smiled and scooted to the side to give Benedetto room to sit. "It's not a problem, one of my father's coworkers acts the same," she said. "And besides, you are rather cute."

Benedetto froze as Caterina threw him a wink, before laughing and patting the bench beside her. "I'm just teasing, Bene! Don't look so terrified!"

"I can't tell if I'm disappointed or relieved," said Benedetto, returning the smile and plating himself some pasta, ignoring the happy little jolt that had run through him when Caterina had called him cute.

"Stick with relieved," said Elio with a smile. "Women are nothing but trouble."

"Says the man who dotes on his daughter like no-one I've ever seen," said Caterina deadpan.

"Well, there was that one time at Monte Argentario..." said Elio, Benedetto placing a plate of pasta in front of him.

"I remember that!" said Marisa with an excited hop in her seat. "That time with the sea turtle was so cool! And I got, like, a dozen pictures!"

Caterina turned to Benedetto as he served himself pasta. "See what I mean?" she asked. "He completely spoils her."

"Whatever you say, Caterina," said Benedetto with a laugh, sitting down with his own plate. "So, what news?"

"Not much," said Caterina as Marisa returned to inhaling pasta. "Just schoolwork and boredom."

"I guess that's one problem with parents who have to travel a lot for work," said Benedetto with a wry smile. "Signor Elio, you and Signor James work at the same company, right? How's work going?"

"Tough, the mafiosi aren't making it easy," said Elio with a small sigh, slipping into his cover effortlessly. "The Guardia Finanza called the company to try and get some help with their computers, but every time we try to help them, this big black car stops in front of the company offices and makes us go back inside and cancel."

"That's too bad," said Benedetto. "It must be scary, having the mafiosi show up at your door."

"After awhile, I guess we've gotten used to it," said Elio with a shrug. "At first it frightens you, but after happening so many times..."

"But what about you?" asked Marisa, hunger briefly sated after her first plate. "We talked to Signora Flaviana earlier, she said that she was worried."

"Well, Signora Flaviana knew Grandfather back before he died, so that's natural," said Benedetto, face turning worried. "To be honest, we're barely staying afloat. It's like she says, nobody wants to sit around and eat these days, and we can't make those little boxed lunches everyone wants. Not without more money, at least, and that's exactly what we need."

"Maybe we could help?" suggested Marisa. "When we're not doing anything, we could come by and do some work in the kitchen?"

"That's not the problem, it's just a question of demand," sighed Benedetto, running his fork listlessly through his pasta. "The damn economy's just too depressed."

Caterina gave him a friendly nudge. "Cheer up, I'm sure that the deliciousness of Dalla Pentola will become known across all of Campobasso soon enough. Then you'll have big shot executives coming in for their business lunches and make tons of money!"

Benedetto laughed, cheering slightly. "That'd be great. Redistribute the wealth, right?"

"Exactly," said Marisa with a nod. "Now, can I have more pasta?"

"Alright, alright, you bottomless pit," said Benedetto with a more cheerful laugh. "Here, give me your plate."

|}-{|

The meal took a good hour and a half to finish. Benedetto and Elio had been full halfway through, with Caterina finishing soon afterwards, but Marisa ended up plowing through four whole plates on her own, accompanied by meat and cheese.

"You just don't stop eating, do you?" asked Caterina as she stared aghast at the wreckage Marisa had left behind.

Marisa primly wiped her mouth and folded the napkin with wounded dignity, setting it atop the table. "Shush, just because I'm a healthy, growing young girl..."

"I don't think that's typical for most girls your age," said Benedetto, stacking the plates on the cart, along with the mostly gone cheese and disappeared meat. He ran the ladle along the bottom of the pot. "And you ate half the pot of sauce."

Marisa pouted, folding her arms. "Again, just because I'm a healthy, growing young g-"

The door opened with a bang.

Benedetto turned and blanched. Five men in ill-fitting suits strode in, their handguns prominently displayed on their hips. Marisa and Caterina both stiffened, the first in shock and aggression, the latter in nervousness. This couldn't end well.

"Oi, Emilio!" called a man with a cleanly shaved face, dark hair slicked back in imitation of a well groomed gentleman but failing spectacularly. "Get out here you old goat."

Emilio walked out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his dish towel and face apparently pleased to see the men. It didn't take a cyborg's eyes to see his hands clenching nervously as he did so. Elio, meanwhile, extended a cautionary hand and tapped the shoulders of both cyborgs. Marisa glanced back with a frown, but nodded. She wouldn't try anything unless things went badly. Caterina simply shrank into the booth, trying to become as invisible as possible. James had trained her to avoid conflict when possible. Benedetto followed her as his father approached the mafiosi.

"Ah, Rodrigo, how can I help you?" he asked, slinging the dish towel over his shoulder. "Maybe a bottle of-"

"Cut the bullshit old man, where's the money?" asked Rodrigo, folding his arms aggressively as his compatriots fanned out behind him to create an intimidating wall of thugs.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have it," said Emilio. "Give me some time, I can get it to you in three days, I pr-"

Rodrigo stepped forward and grabbed Emilio by the collar, shaking the man roughly. "You said that the last time we were here! No more waiting! Give us the money now or we'll just take your things instead! You must have something worth money around here."

"Hey boss," said one of the thugs, nodding across at the register. "That picture frame looks good."

"Hey, you're right, it looks pretty expensive," said Rodrigo, shoving Emilio aside and into a table before walking over to the register. "Who's this, you're wife? She's a looker, she is."

"Yes," said Emilio, picking himself up from the floor.

"Where is she? Surely she'd have come out by now," said Rodrigo, pushing the kitchen door open and looking around. "Where's she hiding? Come out come out, wherever you are..."

"My wife is dead," said Emilio. Caterina winced. That had not been wise to admit. "She has been for the last decade."

"Dead eh?" said Rodrigo, coming back out with a grin on his face. It spoke of bad things to come. "This photo must be important to you."

Emilio drew in a breath. There was no way...

"I see it is," said Rodrigo, grin growing wider on his face as he popped open the register. "I guess I don't need to take much then. Just this picture and a few euros for wine." He pulled out a wad of bills. "Lessee... a hundred euros should do..."

"No," said Emilio, stepping forward angrily. "This will not do. I refuse!"

"No?" asked Rodrigo incredulously. "What do you mean no?"

"I mean NO!" shouted Emilio, growing ever more incensed and gesticulating angrily. Behind him, the thugs shifted nervously, unsure of what to do. "First you come in here like you own my restaurant and make me pay you protection money, now you take my money and my possessions directly! No more, I say!"

"The fuck are you talking about old man?" asked Rodrigo, immediately pulling out his pistol and pointing it at Emilio. His grip was shoddy and loose, and Elio could see his hand visibly shaking, but that was still a gun and it was still pointed at Emilio.

Marisa tried to stand up, but Elio's hand restrained her.

"We can't break cover!" he whispered.

"They're going to shoot him!" Marisa whispered back.

"I'm saying get out of my restaurant, you impudent brat!" Emilio roared, brandishing a fist and striding forward. "Get out or I'll make you get out!"

"Get back, old man, or I'll shoot!" shouted Rodrigo, his voice pitching upward in fear as he stumbled back, crashing into the cart with the pasta and the sauce. Marisa pitched forward again, and again Elio held her back.

"I can get him!" Marisa hissed, vibrating in Elio's grip, unnoticed by the thugs or Benedetto.

"Do NOT break opsec!" Elio hissed back.

"I'd like to see you try," snarled Emilio, pace increasingly rapid as he prepared himself for a fight. "You don't have the guts to shoot a gun at a man!"

"I'll do it! Stay back!" Rodrigo cried, voice increasingly high as the furious man approached. "Stay back! I'm warning you! Stop! St-"

Marisa's conditioning kicked in. Nothing Elio could have said or done would have been able to prevent his cyborg rocketing out of the booth as Rodrigo's hand tightened unconsciously on the trigger, his fear leaving him utterly vulnerable.

Things then progressed very rapidly.

First was the violent **bang** of a pistol firing, followed microseconds later by the sound of Rodrigo's arm disintegrating under Marisa's grip before she threw him bodily across the room and into the wall, his head impacting first and snapping his neck cleanly before the rest of his body followed.

Second was the sound of Benedetto screaming as he ran for his father, who had fallen to his knees as he clutched at his gut, blood spilling out as he collapsed to the ground.

Third was Marisa's scream of fury as she snatched up the soup ladle and threw herself across the room, collapsing the first thug's skull with the ladle before pivoting to punch the second in the chest and caving it in.

A beat.

Fourth was the sound of Marisa's shoe dropping before she was moving again, grasping the third thug by the face and viciously ramming it into his remaining compatriot's sternum, the impact puncturing the last thug's heart with fragments of rib.

Fifth was Caterina and Elio cursing as they got to their feet, running for the bleeding man and beginning first aid. There was nothing either could do about Marisa at this point, but Caterina had supplies that could stop the bleeding sooner rather than later.

Last was the sound of Marisa wrenching the head off the final thug in a spray of blood, still snarling as tears ran down her face.

"Papa, Papa, please, don't die!" wailed Benedetto, crouching beside his father and clutching at Emilio's hand. Caterina hurriedly tore the man's apron and shirt off and poured a packet of coagulant into the exit wound before pressing the apron against it, Elio doing the same on the other side for the entry wound.

"Benedetto," gasped Emilio, forcing a smile onto his face through the pain. He raised a hand and ran his thumb slowly down Benedetto's cheek, blood streaking behind it. "Benedetto, my son, don't.. don't worry... everything is... going to be... all right..."

The hand fell limp.


	8. Decisions

When Emilio's pulse had stopped, Caterina had fallen back on a tried and true strategy: when in doubt, run away.

The first part of this plan was to call James and tell him what happened. It took him less than thirty seconds to put on proper clothing, five more minutes to collect a change of clothing for Caterina, Marisa, and Elio, and ten maddening minutes to make his way discretely to the restaurant.

"Sit-rep, Caterina," commanded James, striding in from the kitchen.

"Sir, we've got five dead hostiles and one dead civilian," Caterina reported dutifully from the blood puddle around Emilio's body. "Signore Elio is taking care of Marisa, and Benedetto is... doing badly. What are your orders?"

James surveyed the room, setting the bundle of clothing on the table where, just minutes earlier, the girls and Elio had been concluding their meal with Benedetto. Blood was everywhere. Elio was busy calming Marisa down, the young girl having dissolved into tears shortly after finishing off the last mafiosi. Benedetto wasn't much better, rocking back and forth with his father's head in his lap, completely dead to the world.

"What a mess," James said, running a hand through his hair. "Right. Go get cleaned up. I'll discuss things with Elio to make a plan, he's probably more familiar with Agency protocols."

"Yes sir," said Caterina with a nod, kneeling to remove her shoes and socks. James moved on as Caterina gingerly stepped out of the pool of blood and began to undress.

"Elio!" James called skirting blood splatter as best he could. "We need to make a plan."

"Wait," said Elio, sparing James a glance before turning back to his cyborg. "Shh.. Marisa, it's going to be-"

James' lips thinned. "We don't have time to wait, Elio. I need-"

"What part of 'wait' do you not understand?" asked Elio, his voice never varying above his normal tone but somehow conveying enough venom to down an ox. "We will discuss it after I finish here."

James ground his teeth but said nothing, mastering his urge to tap a foot impatiently as he watched.

"Now Marisa, deep breaths," said Elio firmly, cradling Marisa in his arms as she hiccuped and gasped, deep sobs still wracking her frame. "Focus on my voice."

"Th-they killed Emilio!" gasped Marisa, burying her face into Elio's shoulder and clutching at her handler's shirt. "They killed him and I didn't DO anything about it!"

"You did so much, Marisa," said Elio soothingly, smoothing back Marisa's hair with one hand and hugging her close with the other. "Look at all you've done. You've avenged Emilio five times over."

"B-but he's still DEAD!" wailed Marisa. "He's dead and he's not coming back and-" She began to hyperventilate.

"Stop, Marisa, deep breaths, remember?" said Elio, rubbing circles into Marisa's back. "It'll be okay, Marisa..."

"No it won't!" Marisa shouted sharply, pulling out of Elio's grip. "What's the use of being a cyborg if I can't protect the people that matter to me?!"

"We don't fight for ourselves, Marisa," replied Elio evenly, looking Marisa in the eye. "Our fight is not about strength of arms and battles of glory, but about our service to others. We cannot do that if our identities are exposed."

Marisa bit her lip, before asking: "And so it's okay to let someone die because of that?"

Elio sighed. "It sounds trite and cliched... but sometimes, for the greater good, sacrifices must be made."

"How can you say that?!" asked Marisa, horrified. "Everybody is important! You can't say that one person is less important than someone else! They-hurk!" Marisa doubled over, a spasm of pain constricting her body as the conditioning fought against her words. Elio immediately reached forward and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, his other hand smoothing back her hair.

"Yes, you're right, everyone is important," he said, his concession causing the conditioning to stop forcing Marisa into conformity. "But at the same time, nobody is important. It's a contradiction that no one really has an answer to. The best you can do is keep in mind the big picture."

"The big picture?" asked Marisa, panting as her muscles slowly unlocked. "What does that mean?"

"We're not isolated, Marisa. If nothing else, Rico, Henrietta, Triela... they're in this too. As are the other fratelli. But if you look even wider, you see the rest of Section Two, and Section One, and Bianchi and the other doctors. And as that expands, we reach the government, which is supposed to unite all citizens under its flag. So when you, and I, and James, and Caterina deploy, we're really deploying with everyone in Italy. Our actions don't stay here, but rather can go have impacts across the country. Do you understand?"

Marisa nodded, straightening upright again as she wiped her tears away. "What do I need to do then?" she asked.

"It's not a question of what you need to do, but what you want to do," said Elio firmly.

"What I want to do?"

Elio nodded. "You have no obligation to anyone. You are a person, you're own person, and if you so wish, I will allow you to go free from this life, by my own hand if necessary. So, Marisa, what do you want to do?"

Marisa considered only briefly, before returning her gaze to her handler's. With a force behind her voice that few could ever achieve, Marisa spoke:

"I want to protect the innocent."

Conviction made her words ring louder than her small, child's voice could manage.

"I want people who have no say, and who should not be involved, to be able to go to sleep without being worried. I want to kill the mafiosi and the Padania who make it impossible for people not to worry about being alive tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. That is what I want to do."

Elio closed his eyes and breathed a deep sigh. He hoped, perhaps foolishly, that Marisa, independently and without influence, had reached that conclusion on her own. He hoped that those had been Marisa's own words, and not words put in he mind by the Agency. Perhaps there was no longer any distinction between the two. But whatever it was, he was a handler, and he had an obligation, above all others, that he had to perform.

"Then I will do my best to help you achieve that," said Elio, fixing his gaze on Marisa's hands, the blood on them beginning to dry, rather than meeting her eyes. He reached out and grasped those hands, holding them up and looking at them.

"If these hands will be stained with blood," he said, eyes flicking back to Marisa's, the tiniest of wavers slipping into his speech, "then let's make sure they do it well."

A beat.

"Are you finished?" asked James.

At least he had been polite enough to wait a moment after all of that. "Yes," said Elio with an irritated sigh. "What do you need?"

"We need to construct a plan for this," said James, waving at the restaurant. "You have a better grasp of the Agency's protocols than I do. Where do you suggest we begin?"

"Call Ferro first and get a clean-up crew on its way." said Elio, wiping his hands on his pants. The blood didn't really go anywhere, unfortunately. "We'll need to start by securing the premises."

"I brought a change of clothes for you and Marisa," said James, nodding at the table. "Caterina can take care of the security and such."

"Don't need it, get her ready to go as soon as possible," said Elio with a shake of his head. "The clean-up protocol has the crew wipe everything clean, and that includes the security footage."

"I'll make the calls while you and Marisa secure the area then," said James with a nod. "What do you want to do with Bene?"

Marisa flinched. "Sir!" she said, voice pitching into panic once more. "Please don't kill Bene! I can't- I don't want-"

"Shhh, I told you, don't worry Marisa," reassured Elio, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Go wash the blood off and change clothes. Make sure to put all your dirty clothes in a pile and that your hands are clean, alright?"

Marisa looked between her handler, his face reassuring and calm, and James, who looked cold and impatient. It was not unlike having Jean in the room.

"I... okay," said Marisa, finally, trusting her handler. Elio would make everything okay. "I'll go wash off in the kitchen." She set off at a jog, pulling her shirt off as she went.

James huffed. "Right then, so, as I was saying. Benedetto?"

"We can't kill him," said Elio definitively. "Marisa will throw a fit."

"I agree that we should avoid killing him," said James. "But for differing reasons. If the mission is compromised badly enough that it's necessary, then she'll need to accept it and continue fighting."

"We'll worry about that later," said Elio with a grim look. "Let's get to work."

"Alright, I'll get started on the calls, you get the girls situated," said James, dialing Ferro's phone number. "Ah, Ferro, hi. We have a situation..."

Elio made his way to the kitchen door and pushed it open slightly as James talked. Inside, Caterina was busy hosing herself and Marisa off with the sprayer at the sink.

"Which one of you is less clean?" Elio asked through the gap. "We need to get Benedetto clean."

"I'll do it," volunteered Marisa, brightening slightly. "I haven't changed clothes yet."

Elio nodded. "Do it. I'm going to go check the perimeter. Get him clean and come find me."

"Yes sir!"

* * *

The two fratelli had eventually managed to drag Benedetto back to the condominium. Marisa had been forced to pry Benedetto's fingers loose, then drag him into the kitchen. It had not been pleasant. The dousing of cold water Caterina had given him helped snap him out of his panic.

The trip back to the apartment had been a quiet affair. Marisa and Elio had made sure Benedetto was keeping up while Caterina scouted ahead and James guarded the rear. They had been lucky; nobody had seen them returning to the condominium. Bendetto was immediately shut into the kitchen to be dealt with later, the knives and other possibly deadly objects piled in the living room, where the handlers had gathered to talk things over, setting the girls to wait in their room.

"Do you think we've been compromised?" asked James, seated on the couch.

"No, the change of clothes you brought should have made it difficult to track us," said Elio, sitting across from him on a padded stool. "But I doubt we were being tracked."

James nodded in agreement, but frowned as he considered further. "Signora Flaviana is going to be problematic."

Now Elio grimaced. "She is. We'll have to get out as quickly as possible."

"Jean and Giuseppe are our best bet, I think," said James. "They have a large inheritance and can probably house all five of us."

"We'll need to split up as we leave," added Elio. "I imagine Bene will want to go with you and Caterina."

"Probably," sighed James. "But first-"

"James, I've found the activity logs you wanted," said Caterina, knocking on the door frame, an external disk drive in her hand. "What else did you need?"

"That's all, thanks," said James, glancing around before finding and pulling his laptop towards him. A gesture brought Caterina to him swiftly, the hard drive exchanging hands as the computer booted from sleep mode.

"Alright... let's see..." began James, sliding through the files with practiced hands, "if we look at the activity logs for the last few months, we can see that the SCU and Camorra have been dancing around each other while their leadership figure things out."

"We're at the edge between the two territories, aren't we?" said Caterina, pointing at the map that James had to the side. "This is going to push the SCU and Camorra to make a decision on whether or not they should split their forces or try their best to get along. The only reason they're working with the Camorra is because the Guardia Finanza is presenting a credible threat."

"The Camorra shouldn't care," pointed out Elio. "Your reasoning is commendable, Caterina, but there's no reason for the Camorra to take an interest in what is fundamentally an SCU affair."

"We can make it a Camorra affair." asked James, leaning back in the couch. He almost seemed to be bracing himself.

Elio and Caterina raised an eyebrow. "How?"

"Benedetto."

Caterina considered this, while Elio looked scandalized.

"What? No, we're not getting more children involved with this!" said Elio, furrowing his brow angrily. "It's bad enough that we have Marisa and Caterina. At least for them, this was the better option, but Bene has plenty of roads open to him."

"But sir, this gives us the best chance of disrupting mafia operations in the area," argued Caterina. "We can leverage Benedetto's legitimate grievances as the Camorra failing to provide for the community. If they agree to our demands, it drives a wedge between the Camorra and the SCU. If they do not, we can use it to drive a wedge between the Camorra and the people."

"You and Marisa are not just resources," returned Elio. "This calls for delicacy and isolating the incident, not extrapolating it and splashing it across the whole of the province!"

"We should let Bene decide," said James breaking into the argument, before Caterina could retort. "It's his father who's dead."

Silence dropped over the room.

"You're right, and the boy needs time to cope," said Elio with a tired sigh, rubbing his eyes and standing up. "We should save this discussion for when we debrief with Jean, it's his game anyway. I'm going to go lie down before we head out."

"Caterina, you should go talk to Benedetto," suggested James, nodding in the direction of the kitchen as Elio left.

Caterina blinked, looking to the door in confusion, then back to her handler. "Why?"

"He's probably doing the 'teen-angst' thing right now," said James, raising an eyebrow. "Even now, though, you're the person he's most likely to listen to."

Caterina fidgeted. "But... it's just a crush. What's to say he won't simply ignore me?"

"Doesn't matter," said James, raising his second eyebrow. "You still have more influence than Elio or I. Go on."

Caterina fidgeted unhappily, grimacing at James' eyebrows, but complied, lingering at the door before finally walking through.

* * *

"Hey."

Benedetto looked up from his seat at the kitchen table. His eyes were rimmed with red, and his throat was raw from his screams. A few chips of paint, where his fists had impacted the wall over a strut, stood atop the tile floor, along with small dots of blood that had fallen from the cuts on his knuckles.

There was little left for him to do but sit and wait. Maybe, with time, it wouldn't hurt as much, and life could continue on in its own, uneventful and uncaring way. In the meantime, he had little to say, especially to the thing standing in the doorway.

Foot steps, the rattle of a chair being pulled out, followed by the sound of a body occupying the seat.

"How're you holding up?" Caterina asked, sitting awkwardly beside Benedetto. The space between them felt pointed, but Caterina was sure that it was a distance acceptable in any social circumstance.

Benedetto made no response.

"That badly, huh?" asked Caterina with a sigh. He crossed her legs and settled down to the waiting game. James had told her to come comfort Benedetto, so she would stay there until he was comforted.

The minutes stretched on. Caterina maintained a quiet presence, making no noise except for the sound of her breathing. The condominium was silent, the only real noise coming from outside, and that was muffled by layers of masonry and glass.

In the sink, a drop of water fell from the faucet and landed with a small tap.

"Who are you, really?" asked Benedetto. "You told me your name was 'Caterina'. Is that true?"

"Yes," said Caterina simply.

"And Marisa? Is that really her name?"

"Yes."

"And is Elio really her father?"

"No. And James isn't mine, either."

Benedetto turned to face Caterina, his eyes bright and accusing. "Then who are you people? Why did you come to my family's restaurant?"

"Your father made great pasta, Bene. That's the only reason."

"Was it?" asked Benedetto. "Was it really? I don't believe you."

"What other reason would there be?"

"Something! Anything! Papa wouldn't have been shot otherwise!"

Caterina fought back an exasperated sigh. "...Bene, that makes no sense."

"Of course you'd say that!" snapped Benedetto, standing up to pace angrily in front of the stove, before whirling and pointing an accusing finger at Caterina. "You've been lying to me all this time, what's one more, right? One more white lie to keep little Bene happy, right? Well fuck off."

"This isn't about you, Bene," said Caterina, folding her arms as she also stood up. "This is much bigger than you or me."

"Fuck you, Caterina!" Benedetto shouted back. "My father is dead!"

"If you really think that one man matters-"

"HE MATTERED TO ME!" Benedetto screamed, stepping forward furiously and throwing a punch.

Training kicked in instantly. Caterina slid sideways, neatly avoiding the blow, before locking Benedetto's arm and tossing him almost casually over her shoulder and onto the table. A step, and Caterina had reached a utensil drawer. Another, and she was back, pinning Benedetto to the table with one hand while the other held the serving fork to his throat.

Silence. The two stared at each other, daring the other to make a move.

Benedetto blinked first.

"Now shut up and listen," said Caterina coldly, her brown eyes flat and uncaring. "It doesn't matter what you feel about your father. One dead civilian is just a statistic." Benedetto growled something incoherent and made to swing at Caterina again. The cyborg responded by thumping him hard in the gut. "I told you to listen. Are you ready? Or do I need to beat you into submission?" Benedetto answered with a glare but stayed still. "Good. As I was saying, one dead civilian is just a statistic. But what matters is what you choose to do about it."

"Do? What can I do?" asked Benedetto, sagging and blinking away tears. "There's nothing I can do. Not against that."

"What do you want to do?" asked Caterina. "You're limited only by your determination."

"Does it matter?" asked Benedetto. "The mafia have guns and men. What's one boy against that?"

"I'm just one girl," said Caterina, leaning closer. She spoke softly, but clearly, her voice carrying an edge to it that Benedetto had never heard before. "But look what I can do. What makes you think you can't do it too?"

"You and Marisa aren't normal," Benedetto answered, now suddenly afraid of the specter hovering over him. "I... I saw what Marisa did. Nobody can do that. Not in real life."

"Sometimes, the difference between a story and real life is difficult to find," said Caterina. "But I assure you, Benedetto, that this is real."

"...What are you going to do to me?" asked Benedetto.

"That depends," answered Caterina, leaning over even more, her eyes swallowing up Benedetto's vision. "Normally, I'd kill you and dispose of the body. But you can be useful. Do you want to be useful, Bene?"

"Useful for what?" His voice shook.

"To end the mafia, of course," said Caterina. "What do you say, Bene? Do you want this? Do you want to fight?"

"...yes."

"Do you want to help us kill those who killed your father?"

"Yes."

"Will you give everything up to do it?"

"Yes!"

Caterina's eyes crinkled. Benedetto realized that she was smiling. She let go of him, not saying a word, and extended a hand to help him up. Benedetto grasped it.

"Good."


	9. Onwards to New Topics

Henrietta was not entirely sure why so many people were at Giuse and Signore Jean's house, nor did she understand why the boy and Marisa both looked very, very sad, but she did recognize that it was up to her and Rico to make their guests feel welcome. Since Rico was not exactly the best at these sorts of things, Henrietta took it upon herself to make tea and bring out cookies.

"So, what's his name?" asked Rico as Henrietta prepared the tea. At Giuse's suggestion, and Jean's approval, Rico had selected a movie and played it on the living room's large television. Neither Marisa nor a newly dressed Benedetto, who had withdrawn to separate seats, were very communicative, the first still steeped in sorrow and the second too busy being terrified to make much conversation. The silence quickly grew awkward, and Caterina, followed by Rico, had fled to the kitchen to "help" Henrietta.

"His name is Benedetto," said Caterina as Henrietta filled a kettle with water at the sink, standing on a stool to reach the faucet. "We, that is, Marisa and I, are friends with him. His father died today."

Henrietta tutted. "How sad," she said sympathetically.

"How did he die?" asked Rico curiously, looking back from the cabinet where she was retrieving tea cups.

Henrietta sent her a disapproving glance. "Rico!" she scolded. "It's not polite to ask that!"

"It's fine, it's not my father," said Caterina, waving off Rico's sheepish apology. "There was a... confrontation. The mafiosi were amateurs. One of them got nervous and pulled a gun."

Henrietta nodded. "Sometimes, the mafiosi really don't know what they're doing."

"They're not very good," agreed Rico, pulling down the tea tray and transferring the tea cups and saucers onto it. "Did Signore James tell you why he kept Benedetto alive?"

"Er, not really," said Caterina, looking through the drawers for spoons and conveniently turning her back to the others. Technically, she'd figured that out on her own.

Henrietta wasn't fooled. She looked up and arched one eyebrow questioningly, pausing her transfer of tea leaves into the tea pot. Caterina fidgeted, Henrietta's look standing up the hairs on the back of her neck.

"Well?" asked Henrietta pointedly as Rico set the sugar bowl on the tray, the blonde cyborg oblivious to the sudden tension.

"Ah.. well, he didn't really tell me... but I figured it out based on what he did tell me," admitted Caterina, hand tightening on the knob of a drawer. "The.. well..."

"You don't have to tell me," said Henrietta, dropping her spoonful of tea into the teapot and her gaze along with it. Caterina's hand loosened. "I understand if Signore James wants you to be, mm, discrete."

"You don't want to know the reason?" asked Caterina, surprised.

"If our handlers tell us something needs to happen, we should trust them, right?" asked Henrietta rhetorically. "So even though it's not Giuse, since you did what your handler wanted, it's good enough for me."

"Signore Jean tells me what I need to know to serve him effectively, and that's all that matters," noted Rico, returning from the pantry with the cookie tin. "Are these the right cookies, Henrietta?"

"Still, it's a little awkward," sighed Caterina as the cookies were set onto a plate, glancing back over her shoulder at the boy curled up in the living room's armchair. Benedetto's eyes kept flicking to Marisa, as if she could attack him at any time. The redhead, wrapped up in her own grief, was in no condition to even notice such suspicions.

Henrietta and Rico leaned around Caterina to look as well.

"He looks afraid," observed Rico, tilting her head.

"There... may have been... repercussions. To the mafiosi. By Marisa."

Henrietta sighed. "Caterina, was there a fight?"

"Er... no?"

"Caterina." Henrietta's full look of disapproval was devastating.

"Yes, yes there was," caved Caterina with a grimace. "Though it wasn't a fight, really. It was mostly just Marisa destroying them."

Henrietta and Rico shared a look. That phase was a part of every cyborg's development, but that didn't completely excuse Marisa's actions. "Well, if he saw..." said Henrietta.

"He did."

"...then I think me or Rico might need to go change soon," said Henrietta, glancing at the ceiling. Giuse and Jean's office was directly over head.

* * *

"Why is there a civilian in my house?"

Jean said this smoothly and evenly from his seat at his desk, as if there was nothing particularly concerning about it. He, Giuseppe, Elio, and James were all gathered in the second story office, the window overlooking a well kept lawn and a small patch of flowers. A closer inspection by a trained botanist would show that each bloom was high poisonous.

"Well, there are a few reasons," said Elio, just as evenly, standing next to James in front of the desk. "James has his own opinions, but as for me, Marisa's emotional state necessitated Benedetto's survival."

"Ah, I see," said Jean, nodding in understanding. "I suppose that for all of us, our cyborg's feelings are more important than operational security."

"That's not entirely true," interjected Giuseppe, standing at the end of the desk furthest from the window. "Sometimes, it's important to consider how your girl will react to a given situation."

"And also," said James. "Death is not always advantageous."

"Oh? Do explain why shattering any semblance of secrecy was a good plan," said Jean, his voice still calm, almost cheerful.

"Quite simply, Benedetto is leverage," said James, lowering his voice. "The SCU targeted his family. We can use the Camorra to destabilize the situation to our advantage."

Jean nodded. "I see. You're proposing we throw the region into chaos."

"Not at all," said James. "It's simply a light destabilizing action. It will be contained."

"You say this as if the boy has the training one of our girls has," countered Giuseppe. "Any one of the girls could wipe the floor with him."

"And as I've said, Benedetto has many options open to him," added Elio. "It is unconscionable to destroy them by using him as a weapon of war."

"Direct action doesn't suit him," agreed James. "But isn't there a Section One agent you've been considering as the next handler, Jean?"

"What about him?"

"He's a HUMINT operative, isn't he?" asked James rhetorically. "We can set him up as Benedetto's representative."

"Assuming the Camorra bought into the story," said Jean. "They would still expect the boy to argue his own case."

"Which is fine, because then we have a trained operative to get him out if it goes sideways," replied James. "It's a little risky, but it should work."

Elio shook his head in disgust. " 'A little risky', he says. James, do you even realize what you're saying? Your risking the life of this boy on the off chance that the Camorra might do something. You don't even know what they might do!"

"I agree, we shouldn't get more children involved than we already have," said Giuseppe. "We're already guilty of enough crimes."

"Sentimentality aside," said Jean with a disapproving frown at his brother and Elio. "There are too many variables to make your plan preferable above the ones we already have in motion."

"It would still be-"

"This discussion is over," said Jean impatiently. "We will hold him here until we can remove him. You have many contacts, surely you can get him a home somewhere."

James grimaced but nodded. "Yes sir."

"Then call them and get things set up," ordered Jean. "As soon as the situation has cooled off, he leaves."

"...Yes sir."

* * *

Benedetto flinched when Henrietta set the tea tray onto the coffee table with a small clatter. Rico and Caterina sat on the ground behind the coffee table as Henrietta began to serve the group tea. She was careful to serve Benedetto last, and to make her movements slow and deliberate.

"Would you like cream or sugar?" she asked, placing a cup of tea beside him on the coffee table.

"Um... some sugar would be good," said Benedetto, edging away slowly in his seat. Henrietta paid it no mind.

"How many spoons?" asked Henrietta politely, settling herself down beside Benedetto on an ottoman.

"Erm, four please."

Henrietta smiled. "I like four spoons with my tea too. Here."

"Thank you," said Benedetto, taking the cup and glancing around. Henrietta pretended not to notice. Caterina and Rico had taken up a conversation with Marisa about poisonous aquatic animals, but were drinking the tea too.

"Aren't you going to try it?" asked Henrietta with a small smile. Benedetto started and realized that he as being impolite.

"S-sorry," he said and hastily raised his cup to his lips. He forgot the tea was hot, however, and jerked his cup away with a yelp, splashing tea onto himself but missing the sofa.

Henrietta wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or sigh at his clumsiness. "Here, have a napkin," she said, proffering the article and sitting back to watch.

"Your name is Benedetto, right?" asked Henrietta as Benedetto hurriedly mopped up his mess.

"Y-yes."

"I heard your father died," said Henrietta. "I- um... I'm sorry for your loss."

"I.. thank you," said Benedetto quietly, falling back into morosity at the mention.

"Would you tell me about him?" asked Henrietta. Benedetto gave her a skeptical look. "I'd like to know. Marisa and Caterina cared about him a lot."

"Caterina doesn't really care," said Benedetto, bitterness lacing his voice. "But thanks for the sentiment, anyway."

"I'm still interested," said Henrietta. "For Marisa to be so sad... he must have been a good man."

Benedetto bit his lip and looked away. "I... I'd rather not talk about it."

Henrietta sighed. "I understand."

"Henrietta?" called Giuseppe. Henrietta immediately set her tea down and turned hastily to face her handler.

"Yes, Giuse?"

"We're still talking upstairs, could you make a pot of tea?" asked Giuseppe.

Henrietta smiled happily. "Of course!"

"Thank you, Henrietta," said Giuseppe, standing in the entry way to the house as Henrietta quickly made her way to the kitchen. "Do you need any help?"

"Mm, I think I can do it," said Henrietta, pulling the kettle off the stove and moving to fill it at the sink. "But... could you get the cookies for me?"

Giuseppe stepped into the kitchen and looked back to make sure Benedetto wasn't watching. The boy had relaxed, a little, and was paying more attention to his tea stained clothing than anything else. Giuseppe nodded himself and picked the cookie tin up from the counter and crossed the kitchen to his cyborg.

"We're going to keep Benedetto around for awhile," he said in a low voice as Henrietta filled the kettle, leaning in closer to make himself heard. "Make him feel comfortable, but don't let him get too many ideas about our work."

"Will he be sleeping upstairs?" asked Henrietta equally quietly, her heart quickening as she realized Giuseppe's proximity.

"No, we're going to give him some blankets to sleep on the couch," said Giuseppe. "It's comfortable enough, and we can't put him with you girls or the handlers."

Henrietta nodded. "I understand."

* * *

The days passed very slowly for all in the house. There was nothing to be done in the wake of a killing on this scale, and all of Section Two had gone into lockdown until the situation had blown over. It would mean at least a week of doing nothing but laying low, most likely two. No one was very enthused by this, but they managed as best they could.

Restricted to the first floor and with nothing to really do, Benedetto quickly returned to his morose state and spent his days either crying quietly or staring off into space unless spoken to. The girls took turns trying to cheer him, to varying success. Henrietta usually just drank tea with him, their conversations drifting aimlessly, while Rico kept up a long stream of excited chatter. Caterina showed him some interesting tricks on computers that kept him occupied puzzling them out and Marisa provided a shoulder to cry on, the two forming a closer bond over their shared grief.

Aside from that, though, the boredom quickly grew unbearable. Jean's announcement that enough time had passed was greeted with some relief. In fact, morale was so high upon this news that it was only natural that things would immediately begin to go wrong.

"What do you mean 'there's no way out'?" asked Jean, his voice so cold and furious that it could slay dragons.

"I mean that none of my contacts are willing to come and smuggle one child out of the country," said James with a vexed frown. "I'm not a miracle worker, Jean."

"Damn it," growled Jean. "We should have just gotten rid of him when we had the chance."

"It's too late now, the girls have gotten attached."

"I noticed, thanks," said Jean caustically. "We'll send him to Priscilla or Olga then. They live relatively normal lives even on duty."

"Or you could do what I say and use him," said James with a frown.

"He's not-"

"It really doesn't matter!" said James frustratedly. "Look, at worst we can put him in a building and station fratelli in and around it, then tell the SCU anonymously! It's a perfect trap!"

"And afterwards, how are we going to explain the girls?" asked Jean. "We can't just send him away with full knowledge of the program."

"He won't betray us," said James confidently. "He wants to destroy the mafia just as much as we do, he just needs to learn a little tradecraft and he'll be set."

"Even if you are right, and we don't know at all if that's true, what exactly do you plan to teach him?" asked Jean skeptically. "How to shoot, perhaps? He'll never reach the same level of proficiency as one of the girls."

"Not to shoot, no," said James, "but what if we used him as a mole?"

Jean sighed and shook his head. "James, I approved your request for third party aid and your request for funding on that research company because the Agency can absorb those losses easily. What you proposing risks blowing open the entire agency. I can't take that risk."

"I can handle this, I've done it hundreds of times before," said James with a scowl.

"Handle it like you did in Southeast Asia?" asked Jean pointedly. James flinched as Jean fixed him with a steely look. "Permission denied, Lieutenant. You'll have to find some other plan."

James swallowed his anger and nodded. "Yes sir," he said quietly, before turning on his heel and leaving the office.

* * *

Benedetto was soon left with Priscilla, with the understanding that the girls wouldn't see him again. Hugs were exchanged, farewells were given, and soon he departed their lives forever.

That evening, another mission kicked off.

"We've had this hideout under surveillance for some time," said Jean as he and Hilshire drove through the darkness towards the enemy position. Their cyborgs sat in the backseat, weapons ready for the night's work. "If we've time this right, we should catch the entire group of mafiosi asleep, drunk, or some combination of the two."

"Which faction are we targeting tonight?" asked Hilshire.

"The SCU," answered Jean. "We can probably expect them to have military grade hardware, so Triela needs to move fast and quietly."

"Did you hear that, Triela?" asked Hilshire.

"Yes sir," said Triela with a nod, a serious expression on her face. "Should I try to keep the gunfire to a minimum?"

"That would be best," said Jean. "We'll be in an apartment complex, but don't hesitate to shoot if you need to."

"Understood."

"Rico, you'll be watching the windows," continued Jean, glancing in the rearview mirror. "Hilshire and myself will cover the front door. The hideout is on the third floor, but there no windows or doors that open onto the alleyways. This should be quick and clean, and then we can all go home to get some rest."

"Who's on backup?" asked Hilshire as Jean slowed the vehicle to a stop 100 meters from the target.

"Pierre and Silvia," said Jean, opening the door and checking his pistol one last time before keying his mic. "Radio check."

A round of affirmatives as the fratelli affixed the equipment onto their ears and throats. Pierre and Silvia were in the agency's ever-present unmarked van two streets down, well within sprinting range if trouble came up. With a nod, Jean directed the teams to fan out and head for their designated positions. Triela casually made her way into the apartment complex, knocking the sleeping door guard unconscious and tying him up before liberating him of his keys and continuing up the stairs.

The hideout was room 313. Triela's footsteps were quiet on the hard, tile floor of the hallway, despite her leather soles. She unslung her shotgun as she reached the apartment and affixed its bayonet to the end with sure and confident motions. Triela had fully recovered from her near headshot, and she was ready to take down the enemy with maximum efficiency.

"Sir, ready to breach," she whispered into the radio, keying it to open mic.

"You are clear to breach," Hilshire whispered back. "All teams, prepare for contact."

Triela transferred her shotgun to her left hand, holding it by the slide as she reared back and threw a hard punch into the door's deadbolt. There was a crunch of collapsing metal, followed almost immediately after by the thud of the entire lock mechanism falling through and landing on the carpet behind. A twist, then another punch, and the handle was disposed of as well. With a grin, Triela shouldered her shotgun and nudged the door open with her foot.

The world exploded in noise.

Triela sprinted into the apartment, conditioning keeping her on target as the lights flew on in each room. The first room was cleared with ease, a single blast from her shotgun fatally wounding both occupants. The second room was a near miss, with Triela being forced to bayonet the last man after blowing apart the first's head. As she wheeled to attack the last two rooms, Triela was forced to dive back as the muzzle of a submachine gun looked back at her from the doorway and shouted its displeasure at her presence.

The sharp bark of Rico's SVD rang out and the SMG was silenced. Triela peeked out and ducked as a man with a meat cleaver tried to take off her head. She responded by jamming her bayonet up through his chin and into his brain, before kicking the corpse off and returning her shotgun to ready position.

Triela advanced forward swiftly, scanning the remaining rooms at speed. A quick ransacking showed no remaining enemies, and Triela quickly slid open a window and jumped into the alleyway behind the building. The distant wail of the Polizia was getting louder and louder as Triela and Rico sprinted back to Jean's car and the two fratelli extracted rapidly. The alarm system had been unexpected, but ultimately hadn't barred them from success. Such routine missions usually didn't require much more than two fratelli, at most, and it was little wonder that Silvia and Pierre hadn't really expected any action, nor had Caterina and James been on call to provide technical support.

The security camera in the corner of the entry hall, then, was understandably missed by Triela in her attempt to secure the premises quickly. Her speed and the low light conditions made it almost completely irrelevant, as nothing but a single blurry frame was salvaged by an enterprising CSI on the SCU's payroll. The prosecution ended up with literally nothing to go on except two shotgun shells and a single 7.62 bullet. It smacked of internecine warfare between the SCU, and the case was dropped.

That single frame, however, made its way to Amadeo Versmecci, the most powerful of the SCU's bosses in the region. This single, blurry image of something that looked like a girl with a shotgun, landed on Amadeo's desk in his house outside Campobasso, and it was this single image that caused him to start badly enough to spill his morning espresso.

"Where did you get this?" he asked his lieutenant.

"One of the Polizia pulled it from Bragazzo's apartment," said the SCU officer. "He and his filiale were asleep when they were slaughtered. According to this, it seems there was only one assassin."

Amadeo sat back in deep contemplation, idly mopping his espresso with his napkin.

"Do you remember Maria?" asked Amadeo, after a moment of thought. "Our business associate from the north."

The officer nodded. "She had excellent hips."

Amadeo snorted. "That aside, do you remember the story she told over grappa?"

"Not really."

"Maria related a rumor about some of the fighting that was happening in the north a few months ago," Amadeo said with an exasperated sigh. "Apparently, there is a group of children going about as assassins, taking out fellow businessmen."

The officer scoffed. "Signore Amadeo, you can't be serious."

"This photo says otherwise," said Amadeo, tapping the photograph on his desk with a grim frown. "Maybe it's just a fluke, but I want you to contact all the sgarro and their filiale. Everyone starts keeping watch, everyone keeps a camera on the door."

"Signore, I can't tell the sgarri and piccioti to be on the look out for kids with guns," said the officer. "They'd laugh you and me out the door!"

"The Guardia's becoming annoying, so just tell them that this is a precaution against the Guardia until we can get a proper response organized," said Amadeo, peaking his hands in front of him as he considered the situation. "And distribute some assault rifles from our stock. Regardless of what actually happens, we need to show the government that we control this city."

"Understood," said the officer with a nod, before turning and leaving the office.

Amadeo sighed and stared at the doorknob as he thought. It was true that it was very unlikely that the government would stoop so low as to send children against them, but he hadn't told his officer the whole story. The disturbing part, the part that drove him to prepare for the worst, was that, in Maria's story, one child had slaughtered fifteen men.


End file.
